The Darkest Gate
by Lauhau
Summary: Finished. A complete reworking of the Labyrinth story. Occasional shoutout to the movie, but otherwise quite different. J/S.
1. Chapter 1

The Darkest Gate  
  
Chapter 1  
  
She got the call just after four AM on a chilly Saturday morning. At the first ring of the phone, Sarah jerked and swatted her snooze button, then sank heavily back into her pillow. After a few more rings, she woke up enough to hope that her roommate would answer it. A short while after that, two things became clear: the phone was going to keep ringing, and no one else was going to get it. Sarah groaned and cracked her eyes open. Her eyelids felt gummy and she had to blink several times before she could focus on the glowing numbers of the digital clock. "Hells bells," she said grumpily and reached for the phone. It wasn't there. She groped her way across the length of the bedside table before sitting up and mumbling, "Sandy, what'd you do to the phone?"  
  
As soon as she got herself slightly more erect, Sarah felt the weird disorientation of waking up in a different place than she expected to, and it took her a few moments to remember that winter exams had just gotten over. Sarah was home, in her own room, for the first time in almost a year and a half and the ringing was coming from the desk under the window.  
  
She summoned enough energy to roll off the bed onto her feet, taking the quilt with her. Shuffling to the phone, Sarah wondered why Karen hadn't woken up yet. Her dad could sleep through earthquakes, but Karen made up for that by being the lightest sleeper on the planet and more than ready to remind them of it. A tiny spark of alarm flared in Sarah's gut - nothing specific, just a vague feeling that something wasn't right. She looked out the window at the moon, hanging nearly full above the trees, and shivered as she brought the receiver to her ear. "Hello?" she said, voice creaky with sleep.  
  
"Ah, hiya darlin', is it a bad time?" Pierce's voice asked on the other end. The connection was terrible, spitting and snarling with static, but Sarah thought his voice sounded unusually high.  
  
"Middle of the night, Pierce," she said, feeling more alert and more alarmed with each passing moment. Pierce already knew it was a bad time. Pierce always knew things like that, no matter where he happened to be.  
  
"Apologies," he said. "We've got something of a situation, to tell the truth. Terry's on the phone with Hal and Becky. We're, ah, going to bring you all in. How quickly can you get to an airport?"  
  
Sarah felt her stomach go cold. "Karen'll kill me. She's counting on me to babysit tonight. But I'm cleverly deducing from your tone that this is a little more important."  
  
"You know those stories in my library that you're so fond of?" Pierce asked, voice stretching even higher. "Well, it turns out that some of them are actually true. Frighteningly accurate, in fact. Suddenly it seems that we might not be loonies after all."  
  
"Pierce," Sarah said nervously, "that would ruin our image. What would Dad say if he found out I hadn't been wasting my life all these years? Please tell me this is a poorly timed joke."  
  
"Less talk, more moving. Or, dare I say it, the whole world is going to find out exactly how not nuts we are. Steal the car, take a cab, I don't care how, but get thee to the airport. A ticket will be waiting, hopefully accompanied by Becky and Hal. Now scat!"  
  
Ten minutes later, Sarah found herself in a taxi and soaked completely through. She had thrown on her clothes, left a barely coherent note for her parents, and dashed out into the rain. The taxi driver must have thought she was a few cards short of a full deck because he drove in total silence, not even checking his mirror when Sarah began to swear and slap at her clothing to make sure she hadn't forgotten her wallet. Paying the fare took almost all the spending money she had managed to scrape together at the end of the semester, and Sarah made a firm mental note to squeeze Pierce for every penny.  
  
It turned out there was no ticket waiting for her: there was an entire plane. True, it was a little six-passenger thing, but Sarah couldn't help feeling mysterious and important as a security officer jogged across the wet concrete to meet her and escort her to the plane. Becky and Hal were already inside. As they strapped themselves in for takeoff, Becky leaned over and shouted, "Isn't this dreamy? Did he tell you what this is all about?"  
  
"One of the privileges of unlimited wealth," Sarah yelled back over the sound of the engines. "I expect he's finally lost his mind, that's what." The little plane gave an odd hopping lurch, and they were airborne.  
  
A few minutes after takeoff, Sarah started to get really angry at herself. "I am a prize idiot," she growled to herself between clenched teeth. "Pierce calls up in the dead of night, no explanation, and here I am, eager as anything to swoop in and be a heroine. Pierce and Terry probably just had a fight or something."  
  
An hour into the flight, Sarah realized that she had no idea where they were going, or when, if ever, they were going to land. Crawling up the tiny aisle to the cockpit, she stuck her head around the door and yelled, "When are we landing?" The pilot glanced over his shoulder in her direction, then tapped the huge earphones strapped across his head and turned back to his instrument panel. Sarah saw, however, that the sky around them was no longer filled with storm clouds and the air seemed to be getting brighter. "Possibly heading east," she thought as she settled back into her seat. Despite the noise and the entirely unusual circumstances, Sarah closed her eyes and slipped gently into sleep.  
  
She woke to Becky tugging on her shoulder. "We're here," Becky gushed, "and you should just see it! Somewhere in Yellowstone, I think. Maybe Pierce thought we all deserved a vacation."  
  
Sarah raised her head and looked out her window, but all she could make out was a pale orange blur. Rising to her feet, she felt joints pop all over her body. "How long did it take us to get here?" she asked, rubbing her stiff back.  
  
Hal reached over and started to rub her shoulders, but quickly withdrew his hand at Becky's glare. "Nearly four hours. It's nice to get away from the city every now and then."  
  
Sarah walked to the open door of the plane and stuck her head outside, blinking at the brightness. They were certainly not in Yellowstone, although yellow rock and red dust dominated the landscape and here and there a tumbleweed sat at rest. In the distance, red cliffs pushed up from the flat, quiet ground. The sky was an intense blue and completely empty of clouds. She felt dwarfed by the vast, stretching emptiness around her. "If I was ever going to develop agoraphobia, this would be the place to do it," she said, testing the strength of the silence. The dry air thinned the words to almost nothing and they blew away on the wind. "Lonely," Sarah whispered.  
  
At that moment, she heard the thin whine of a car engine. "That must be Pierce," Hal said, and all three of them climbed out of the plane. The pilot ignored them. Once outside, they could see a ribbon of dust snaking up behind an open-top jeep that bounced over the uneven terrain towards them.  
  
"How did we manage to land here?" Sarah asked, looking around and noticing the lack of airstrip.  
  
"More of that unlimited wealth business," Hal said, winking. "I'm amazed you slept through it. I thought we were going to shake ourselves to pieces."  
  
As soon as he saw them, Pierce stood up and began waving madly. Terry honked enthusiastically from the driver's seat, Becky squealed excitedly, and all in all the group made an impressive amount of noise. Terry pulled up next to them and both men jumped out. Hugs were given and received all around, and then Pierce shooed them all into the jeep.  
  
"I feel that explanations are in order," he began as soon as Terry started off. "First, let me thank you all for coming. I had hoped we'd get Dan Barker from New York, and maybe Housa Lotterdale, but they both told me I could go hang." Pierce's thin face drooped for a moment, but he picked right back up again, giving them his patented mad elf grin. "I'd better start at the beginning. Yesterday morning, just after sunrise, I got the strangest feeling that I ought to take a trip to Arizona."  
  
"See? Yellowstone!" Becky hissed triumphantly.  
  
Hal said guiltily, "Well, no, actually. But close, very close." She elbowed him in the ribs.  
  
Pierce ignored both of them. "I called my driver, arranged the plane, and off we went. Terry thought I was out of my head, of course, but he's used to me flitting about by now. It was really the oddest thing, because I knew exactly where I was going. Once the plane landed, we set right out and I knew just where we were supposed to go. By that time it had got Terry, too, and the two of us were as excited and scared as we'd ever been. We pulled up in a darling little spot and just sat down on the grass and waited. 'This is where we're supposed to be,' we said to each other."  
  
At this point, Terry turned down into a shallow canyon and the going got much rougher. Sarah gritted her teeth and held on to the jeep for dear life as it pitched and bucked on the loose stones, but she too was feeling something like Pierce had described. There was a sense of expectation in the air, of important business that needed doing and which they would be the ones to do.  
  
Pierce lowered his voice and continued, "It was a good thing we were there, because we hadn't been waiting long when Something Happened." Chills rolled down Sarah's spine at his tone of voice. "We were sitting on the grass, and suddenly the air in front of us turned black! Now, it had taken us a good part of the day to get here, so the sun had set hours ago and the moon wasn't due to rise for ages. This wasn't like night, though. This was like death. It was complete black, something even the starlight wouldn't touch. It scared the devil out of me. I sat up straight away and recited the first words that came to my mind - the Prayer of the Innocents, from Hammond in the thirteenth century. And you know, it seemed to work! I could feel it shooting out long deathly arms in our direction, but it didn't like Latin at all! Terry and I just kept shouting every prayer we could think of, and then Terry got the idea of trying one of the basic incantations on it. Even better! The thing curled right up and went to sleep when we performed a simple Closed Door charm." Pierce's face was flushed with excitement, and his words were tripping over themselves in his haste to tell his story. Hal and Becky were entranced, eyes glowing and mouths akimbo.  
  
Sarah, however, was experiencing an all-too-familiar sensation. Her stomach seemed to contract to almost nothing, and even in the heat of the desert her hands and feet felt cold. Her sight turned blurry and gray and her breathing became labored and shallow. She had struggled against these feelings every since she could remember and by now she knew that fighting only made it worse, but she still felt her body tense as the familiar fear took her. Why did this happen to her? She dimly heard Pierce say, "Hal, Sarah's having another episode!" Through her rubbery skin, she felt hands grab her arms. Then her sight faded and the world disappeared in rushing darkness.  
  
Through the whistling wind, Sarah heard voices speaking in unknown languages. She saw confused images of strange lands, tall towers, and a singular pure white owl. Fantastic faces and incredible creatures rushed past her and she felt feathers brush her cheek. Then she was falling down and down, and finally she fell back into herself with a solid thump.  
  
She opened her eyes to see four worried faces bending over her. "Oh, for goodness sake," Sarah muttered, "you don't need to look so panicked. I'm all right, really I am. How long was I out?"  
  
The four faces looked at one another, and then Terry said, "A few minutes, honey. Are you sure you're okay?"  
  
"Yes," Sarah said grumpily. She hated the episodes - she hated calling them "fits" even more - and she hated losing control like that. She righted herself slowly, careful to watch for any signs of dizziness. Sitting up completely, she looked around and said, "This must be it."  
  
They had indeed arrived. Hovering in front of them was a little ball of blackness. Pierce had been right: the cloud of darkness felt totally alien to the world, and Sarah could almost hear it whispering hateful curses at them. As she looked at it, a very strange thing happened. "Pierce," she said slowly, "I know what this is."  
  
"Of course, dear," he said gently as they all got out of the jeep. "It's mentioned in half a dozen classic myths, possibly even figures in some creation myths. It's clearly a sort of wormhole, a rift in space and possibly time -"  
  
"The last one was attempted when Saint George was head of the Circle," Sarah continued in a low voice, as if Pierce hadn't spoken. "It took them ten days to close it, and a host of creatures escaped because they fought amongst themselves. The Dragon was the largest of them, but by no means the most vicious." The others were now staring at her in open astonishment. Sarah kept talking, saying the words as they surfaced in her mind in case she forgot them as soon as they stopped coming. "Pierce, your Closed Door charm was exactly what we needed to buy us time, but that time is rapidly running out. Once the Gate punches through to us, we'll find ourselves in the middle of a swarm of creatures out of nightmare. I can see the pattern in my head - here, I'll draw it on the ground."  
  
Using her finger, Sarah began to draw on the scrubby grass that covered this part of the canyon. The other four looked at her in puzzlement, and then in fear, for where Sarah's finger traveled, a line of blue-white fire flared behind it. Sarah noticed it out of the corner of her eye but didn't dare allow herself to be distracted. The pattern in her head burned clean and clear, and she hurriedly traced each path, each turn, before the picture could disappear. The pattern told a story, tapping into the flow of history down through the ages to exactly describe what the world would be like if this little black thing were sealed off forever. Once drawn, it would require a Word to make it reality and Authority to say that word. Sarah prayed fervently that one of them might have such authority, because otherwise it looked like a fairly nasty end to the day.  
  
She straightened at last as the final line settled into place, feeling very satisfied with her handiwork. When she looked at the others, though, they seemed anything but satisfied. In fact, Becky was crying and Hal was looking at her like she was from another planet. Pierce and Terry, however, regarded the pattern with something like awe.  
  
"Is that how it goes?" Pierce murmured. "All these years, looking for the key to the ancient mysteries. It was in front of us all the time! Sarah, my dear, I take off my hat to you."  
  
"I think we couldn't ever find anything like this before because we're only called on when we're needed," Sarah said softly. "Pierce, you were right, and you have always been right. As the head of our Circle, small though it may be, I think you have the authority to seal this breach."  
  
Terry squeezed his hand. Pierce nodded, tears shining in his eyes, and raised a hand over the pattern. The Word rolled like thunder from his lips and shook the ground under his feet, and as soon as it was spoken Sarah couldn't remember a single sound of it. The Word made the pattern into reality, and they stood in silent fascination as Sarah's lines of fire drew together and flowed towards the ball of blackness, forcing it closed.  
  
As she watched, Sarah suddenly saw a tiny figure within the darkness. It was running, racing frantically towards them, hands held out in desperate supplication. The wild blackness whirled around it, and its cries cut at her heart. Sarah's reaction was pure reflex. "Hold on!" she yelled, and took a flying leap towards the rift. Her hand slapped against something warm and firm, and she grabbed it and pulled hard. Unfortunately, the owner of the other hand seemed to be doing the same thing - in the opposite direction. Sarah dug in her heels and growled, but the other person only pulled more determinedly. Suddenly she felt a tremendous tug and she was yanked off balance. She felt herself start to fall. A belt of blackness rolled out of the rift and tied itself snugly around her waist. She howled a wordless cry of fear and rage, and then the darkness contracted upon itself and dragged her down into it. 


	2. Chapter 2

There was a sensation of floating bodiless, then a dark blur roared past like a train speeding through a station and Sarah landed hard on her left side, smacking her head into the ground. For a moment she just lay there, mind a complete blank, trying to comprehend what had happened. Her head really hurt, there seemed to be a piece of luggage lying across her legs, and her hand was gripping something tightly. The logical conclusion, she decided, was that she had had a very strange dream and had just now fallen out of bed and woken herself up. She raised her head and looked at what her hand was holding so insistently.  
  
It was, she discovered, another hand, which was attached to a body that lay twisted across her lower half. Her eyes went from the long fingers, down the velvet sleeve, across the fierce shock of hair, and came to rest on a man's saturnine face. He might as well have had the word "aristocrat" tattooed on his cheekbones, they were so beautifully articulated. Upswept eyebrows, hair like corn silk - Sarah sucked in her breath and wondered if she might still be asleep. Her head really hurt, though. He had pushed himself up on his elbow and pressed his other hand to his chest, his breath coming in short, gulping bursts. His eyes flickered to Sarah's face and he bared his teeth in a distinctly unfriendly grimace, then turned his head to scan their surroundings. Sarah felt that there had been something very odd about his glance, but he had looked away too quickly for her to identify it. She automatically moved her head to follow his gaze and her own breath died in her throat.  
  
They were in a cage made out of something that looked like obsidian, black and shiny, and the cage was in the middle of what was obviously a battlefield, surrounded by what was clearly the victorious army. The fight must have ended fairly recently because shattered spears and armored bodies lay scattered over the churned earth, some still holding swords in their dead hands. A gray pennant, shredded nearly to pieces, flapped from a wooden pole that had been sunk into the mud. It was supported by what Sarah would have labeled a gnome, from the descriptions of her favorite authors at least. It stared at her with marvelously wide eyes, then stuck a small finger in its mouth and began to chew.  
  
The other creatures gathered around the cage were much, much larger than the big-eyed standard bearer. Sarah gulped as she took in the talon-like toes, the metal-encased bodies, and the huge, dribbling mouths that loomed above her. She wouldn't come up as high as mid-chest on half of these things. One maw widened in a gruesome smile to show a set of extremely long, extremely pointed teeth. The biggest of the creatures, who had the design of some sort of bird of prey etched into his armor in scarlet enamel, sniggered and said something in a guttural, gloating voice and pointed the tip of his spear at Sarah. The rest of his troop gurgled and chortled, and Sarah sat up indignantly.  
  
"Hey," she said angrily, "you keep your nasty comments to yourself!" The man next to her looked at her like she'd gone completely off her rocker. "Look here," she continued, "I think it's very rude kidnapping people from their own worlds and putting them in cages in the middle of who knows where. In fact, it's the worst manners I've ever seen, so you'd better just send us back."  
  
Her speech was met with a cacophony of hoots, whistles, and barks of laughter. "You have no idea what this will do to, erm, interspecies relations," Sarah improvised, getting to her feet. If you can't beat 'em, confuse 'em, she thought. It was worth a shot at least. "Who's in charge here? You'd better let us see him. Or her," she added as an afterthought.  
  
The big one, the one with the bird design, issued a string of strange words that ended on a high pitch and seemed to be a question, because he looked at her intently when he was finished.  
  
"I have no idea what you just said," Sarah told him, "but even if I did, I'm not sure I'd tell you anything."  
  
At this, the man next to her said a word that was pretty clearly an expletive and made a flicking motion towards her with his fingers. He had recovered enough to sit up, still holding his side, and was looking thoroughly exasperated. Sarah heard a popping noise and the goblins outside the cage laughed harder than ever. The man looked down at his fingers in disbelief, then shifted his gaze to the black bars of the cage. His eyes narrowed and he said one word: "Orieth."  
  
"Oh dear," Sarah sighed. "Don't tell me I can't understand you either. This isn't right at all - how am I supposed to get home if I can't talk to anyone? I try to believe my six impossible things before breakfast, but this is going a little far."  
  
"What an unexpected pleasure," a voice interrupted from behind the bird- bearing soldier. It spoke English and that was a blessing, but it had an oily, sugared quality to it that stood her hair on end. The creatures, who looked too much like goblins to be anything else, lumbered respectfully aside to clear the way for a tall, thin man draped from neck to knees in a chain mail tunic. The bird of prey design was embroidered on his surcoat, picked out in gold this time instead of scarlet. Obviously in charge, Sarah thought. At least he was human. He wore a sword at his side and his long black hair fell unbound over his shoulders. His features were handsome and his face could have been appealing, but his eyes were as dark as night and twice as cold.  
  
As he walked to the cage, he continued, "I never imagined that the Mage of Earth would be so young, nor so beautiful." Sarah began to feel fear replace her anger. She was still in shock from finding herself so entirely unexpectedly in the middle of an army of goblins, and none of it had seemed quite real until this point. That slippery voice, however, made her shiver and realize that there were a great many highly unpleasant things that might happen to her in her current situation. Her bruised side hurt too much for this to be a dream. Besides, didn't you always understand the people in your dreams? The cold eyes of her captor pierced right to her heart, as if to let her know that this was really happening, and she was in a lot of trouble.  
  
Beside her, the stranger in the cage rose stiffly to his feet, snarling something in a rippling language that didn't adapt very well to an angry tone. Outside the cage, black eyes flickered towards him and the overly- sugared voice said, "Silence, Jareth." Sarah went cold all over as she saw her companion's mouth keep moving, but without producing a single sound. He turned very pale and his hands clenched into fists.  
  
"Now then," the oily man continued, "with whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?"  
  
She didn't need the warning look from Jareth. Her gut was sending out messages loud and clear. Sarah said slowly, "I don't think I should tell you."  
  
"Oh come now," he chuckled. "Surely there's no harm in it. I, my dear lady, am known as Malocoli Duath. I admit we expected His Majesty, but you are quite. . . a surprise." His eyes traveled over her with unmistakable intentions.  
  
Sarah liked her body. It was serviceable, it did what she told it do, but it had nothing of the slim, hipless beauty or poised, effortless grace she so admired in her classmates. As Duath's eyes raked her, she was acutely conscious of her embarrassing curves and defiantly crossed her arms over her chest. "It's very rude to stare," she snapped.  
  
His gaze turned steely. "I only request your name, dear maiden, so that the priests may chant it to release your soul as they slit your lovely throat. I'm told that is the proper way to do the thing. Would be willing to consider an exchange?"  
  
Sarah nodded vigorously. Her stomach seemed to have suddenly filled itself with ice. "Absolutely. You let us go, tell me how to get back home, and I'll tell you my name 'til the sun goes down."  
  
Duath actually looked sad for a moment. "You would be speaking for a very long time indeed, for we are beyond the reach of your sun. No, my dear, I have quite a different bargain in mind. In exchange for your name, I will let you die a maiden."  
  
A well-aimed splotch of mud hit Duath squarely in the eye. A second handful splattered noisily on his surcoat moments later. Duath grew very still, then the mud simply vanished and Sarah turned her head to see Jareth frozen in the pose of cocking his arm for a third throw. Bizarrely, she found herself noticing that he was quite tall. The top of her head would probably sit just underneath his chin.  
  
"You, my clever cousin, have answered for your exquisite cellmate," Duath said in a deadly voice, eyes burning with a cold, empty light. "I will return her when she has begged me for mercy and I am tired of her."  
  
Terror froze her in place as surely as any malicious magic. A curt motion of Duath's hand sent five goblins jogging to a gate in the cage that Sarah hadn't noticed before. They unlocked five separate locks and opened it. Sarah cast a desperate glance at Jareth, locked in place beside her, and saw an apoplectic gleam in his eye - certainly nothing useful. It occurred to her that Duath probably wouldn't want an audience while he was amusing himself. He was also arrogant enough that he might make a mistake. There was just enough time for those thoughts to fly through her mind and then she was kicking, flailing and biting as the five creatures descended on her. She never had a chance, however, and they clapped shackles of the same shiny black material on her wrists and ankles and bore her bodily from the cage, leaving her petrified companion behind.  
  
Sarah was careful to watch their route closely, kicking and screaming all the while, but as it turned out she didn't need to. Duath's tent was pitched on a round hummock just over a muddy rise, barely five hundred feet from the cage. As they dumped her through the canvassed entrance onto a thick rug, her mind raced through her options, discarding one after the other as too improbably or too risky. Her biggest fear was that he would simply freeze her as he had done to Jareth, but somehow she thought that a sick guy like Duath might like a struggle.  
  
He came striding into the tent, already unfastening his surcoat. "Get up," he commanded perfunctorily. Sarah rose slowly to her feet, pretending to be very shaky. Internally, she was surprised at how calm she felt. This was life and death here, and Sarah definitely wanted life. Duath didn't waste any time. He grabbed her, boxed her about the ears a few times, then threw her towards a military cot. As she landed on the thin mattress, Sarah flung her left hand into the frame and punched it hard. Her hand went numb, but the impact produced a very satisfactory thunk. Sarah forced herself to go limp, moaning feebly in her best approximation of someone knocked nearly unconscious.  
  
As she had hoped, Duath never considered that she might have more presence of mind than she was pretending. He practically slavered in anticipation as he began tearing at her clothes. Sarah waited until she felt his cold hands touch her belly, then she moved like lightening.  
  
One knee shot up directly between his thighs as she swung her right arm with all her strength, smashing the shackle on her wrist into his head. There was a sickening crunch and Duath hung suspended over her for a moment, his mouth a round "o" of surprise. Then his entire weight collapsed on her. For a thin man, he was surprisingly heavy. Sarah kicked and struggled until she pushed his limp bulk onto the floor, and by the time she had liberated herself her false calm had deserted her. Her whole body shook with sobs and tears began streaming down her cheeks. There was no time to waste, however. Promising herself a full-out bawling session when she got out of there, she forced herself to focus on escape.  
  
The first order of business was to tie the sadistic bastard up. Sarah found a small knife in his dresser which proved to be very sharp, and she shredded the most expensive-looking coat in his trunk into strips, gagged him, and bound him to the cot. She wasn't sure how strong he was, so she made the knots as tight as her hands could pull them and hoped she cut off some circulation. A control freak like Duath probably needed keys to every lock in his camp, so she ransacked his tent and even overcame her revulsion enough to search his pockets. Sure enough, she found a heavy ring of keys strung on his belt, and the seventh one fit her shackles. For good measure, Sarah chained him to the bed.  
  
She found a set of clothing in his trunk that looked like some sort of uniform and quickly changed into it, then stuffed her own clothes down the jacket. She had to fold the pants and sleeves nearly double, but she wasn't terribly concerned about fashion at the moment. The little knife went into a pocket, as did the keys, and Sarah gave the room a quick once- over. There was a loose sheaf of papers on a portable desk in the corner, and without thinking about it Sarah grabbed the pages and stuffed them in with her clothes. Peeking under the back of the tent, she didn't see any guards skulking about so she pulled up the canvas and slithered underneath it. All in all, she guessed that less than ten minutes had passed since she had been taken into the tent.  
  
Once outside, she took a moment to orient herself, then set off toward the cage at a purposeful walk. There was no chance she would be taken for a soldier if anyone got within spitting distance, but they might think she was another of those little gnomes if they didn't get too close. A thousand voices were yammering inside her head, telling her that this was insane, that she had much better turn tail and run right now. Sarah firmly told them to shut up. At the same time, she had no idea how she was going to pull this off.  
  
Fate, or luck, was with her. As she approached the cage, a gruff goblin wearing a huge leather apron barked sharply at her. Sarah froze and pulled her head down into the jacket of her uniform like a turtle, but the giant creature never looked at her face. He shoved a wooden tray carrying a hunk of bread and a mug of water in her direction. She took it, wincing at the pain in her left hand. He pointed a crooked finger at the cage and its prisoner and grunted what was unmistakably an order. Sarah grunted back in what she hoped was an obedient sort of way and trotted off, blessing each and every one of her lucky stars. No one else spared her more than half a glance.  
  
She went straight to the gate in the cage and knocked the tray against it to get his attention. Jareth was prowling up and down the length of the cell like a giant cat, and he turned to give her a withering glare. As his eyes met hers, they widened in shock. Sarah stared back at him in astonishment. Now she realized what had been so strange about his look - one eye was as blue and chilly as the sea, but the other was full of the dark warmth of old gold . The strange moment of recognition lasted only a few seconds, and Jareth's eyes dropped to the bulge of keys in her pocket. He cast a casual glance around, then gave her a barely perceptible nod. As she brought the keys out, careful to keep them from clanking against each other, Jareth began to prowl on the other side of the cage, one eye constantly on the guards.  
  
Sarah felt that nothing in her life up to this point had been so nerve- wracking as the silent struggle to fit five keys to five separate locks. It seemed to take forever, and she could feel her hands trembling and was terrified that she would drop the keys, whose clatter would give them away. She couldn't believe that the guards were just sitting around their little table drinking and casting dice. Surely her intentions were too obvious. The guards must be toying with them, building false hope. They would let her open all but the last lock, and then they would grab their spears and laugh as they surrounded her.  
  
As the fifth lock clicked open in her hands, Sarah stared at it in shock, too surprised to do more than blink at it. Jareth was instantly at the gate, muttering words to her in that lilting language of his. She had no idea what he was saying, but as she reached up and threw back the crossbar she heard a yell from behind her.  
  
Jareth shouted something and flung himself at the gate. It sprang open, bowling Sarah over, and he leapt through it like a tiger. Sarah had a confused, panicky impression of goblins running toward them from all directions and then Jareth hauled her to her feet and started running. She stumbled after him, wondering if he had just pulled her arm out of its socket, and then he whirled, gathered her in his arms, and shouted a hoarse command. There was a bang, a smell like sulfur, and everything disappeared. 


	3. Chapter 3

When the world stopped spinning, Sarah found herself clasped tightly in Jareth's arms, nose buried in the brocade on his lapels. He smelled like wildflowers, she noticed, with a tang of spice underneath. They stood like that for a moment, and then Jareth released her so abruptly she staggered and almost fell down. They were in what looked like a small, ancient temple, overgrown with green vines and paved with broken marble.  
  
"There has been entirely too much rushing about today," Sarah said, wincing as she sank onto a convenient tumbled pillar. The entire left side of her body felt like it had been repeatedly kicked by a horse.  
  
Jareth stalked up to her, bent down until his nose was nearly level with hers, and snarled, "You idiot. Too stubborn to listen, are you? We could have made a clean getaway if you hadn't been in such a confounded hurry to throw that bolt!"  
  
Sarah couldn't believe her ears. "It's thanks to me you're out of that cage at all," she retorted hotly. "If I were you, I'd be grateful! I couldn't understand a word you were saying before. I've been through a lot today, so don't push it! Besides, it's not like they wouldn't have noticed our escape."  
  
"You blasted ninny," he cried, voice rising to a near yell, "I could have laid a false trail, bought us some time. One moment more and we would have been in the clear. The whole bloody army is probably already mobilizing to hunt us down." His accent sounded vaguely British, with a current of wildness running underneath it. That seemed to describe a lot of things about this man: a polished exterior, with a hint of something dangerous beneath.  
  
"I'm terribly sorry for risking my neck to come back and get you," Sarah said, voice dripping with sarcasm. "I'm sure they'll be more than happy to lock you up again, and next time I'll wait until Captain Psycho hacks your head off before untimely coming to your rescue. Has it occurred to you that our situation has vastly improved?"  
  
"If you hadn't pulled me through that rift, neither of us would be in this situation!" he flung at her accusingly. "In fact, I think you're allied with Duath, sent to bewitch me no doubt. You're only a slip of a girl after all. How did you escape from him?"  
  
Sarah gaped at him. "I can't believe you just said that! I almost got - he was going to - I could have been raped, all because you couldn't stand his stupid gloating and had to throw dirt at him like a little kid. Besides, I didn't pull you through that breach, you were already in there. I tried to help you out!"  
  
"You dragged me right into his trap!" Jareth roared.  
  
Sarah was so mad she actually started to see red. Bruises forgotten, she jumped up, grabbed his jacket, and dragged his face down to his. "Just because you're angry at yourself for falling for his trick doesn't mean you can take it out on me!" she yelled. "He fooled both of us. But I saved your life and the least you can do is pretend to be happy about it!" She noticed that her hands were crushing his velvet jacket, and forced her grip to relax. "Besides," she continued in a calmer tone, "you're the only person I know in this place. All I want to do is go home, and we'll have a much better chance if we work together." She patted his chest gingerly and stepped back. "That means we have to trust each other. So I'm sorry you ended up here, but it wasn't my fault. Now apologize to me and we can try and decide what to do."  
  
They stood glaring daggers at each other for a long moment, and then Jareth said through gritted teeth, "I admit I may have accused you unfairly."  
  
Sarah rolled her eyes. "I'll take what I can get. How come I can understand you now? You were speaking gibberish before."  
  
His eyes, one icy and one blazing, bored into hers for a moment, then he turned to pace around the clearing. "Orieth," he said. "Wizard's iron. Duath must have forged it himself. It negates any power other than that which created it. You understand me because I placed a spell on you when we were still imprisoned, but it required my freedom from his enchantment to work." His tone was not quite conciliatory, but at least he wasn't yelling. "We're quite a pair, aren't we?" he asked sarcastically. "The most powerful mages in our respective worlds, but we fell right into his trap."  
  
Clearly, there was much more in heaven and earth than had previously existed in Sarah's philosophy. In fact, now that her brain had had a little time to slow down and come out of automatic pilot, Sarah began to realize exactly how incredible her situation was. The fantasy she read so avidly, writers' theories of other worlds - none of it came close to the reality of experiencing it. She looked around, taking in the gray sky, the green ivy, and the calm, unearthly quiet of the ruined monument. "Where are we?" she asked in a whisper, wondering how much her beloved authors had gotten right.  
  
"An old Druid temple, I shouldn't wonder," Jareth said, regarding the crumbling marble around them. "I simply latched on to the first place I could find that didn't feel openly hostile. Unfortunately, that probably means we haven't gone far."  
  
"No, I meant where in the larger sense. What world," Sarah said, running a reverent finger over the marble on which she sat. "We had Druids in our world too," she murmured.  
  
Jareth put a booted foot up on another fallen pillar and muttered, "That is the question, isn't it? What world. Clearly we are not in the Underground." He eyed her dubiously and said, "Am I right in guessing that you are from the Upper Country?" Sarah was at a loss with that one, and he brushed it aside. "I think we can assume you are, because our histories are clear that the Uplands were headed for an astounding level of ignorance when we broke off contact. That leaves one possibility, I'm afraid."  
  
Sarah wasn't sure she wanted to know what that was. Jareth had turned a shade paler as he spoke, and she noticed a pinched sort of look around his eyes. "Knowledge is power," she said, more to herself than to him. He looked at her peculiarly, but seemed to have followed her train of thought.  
  
"Indeed. We are in Tir-na-nOg. Land of Eternal Youth, my dear. And I think we had better put as much distance between this temple and ourselves as we can, or we will find ourselves in worse trouble. If," he added grimly, "that is even possible."  
  
Sarah looked at him, alarmed. "D'you mean they can follow where we went?"  
  
His shoulders shrugged in a gesture that was both lazy and arrogant. "Any wizard worth his salt can find our trail, given enough time. I think it behooves us to take advantage of our head start."  
  
Sarah agreed wholeheartedly. Since it didn't seem to matter much which direction they went, Jareth picked the easiest route. Before they had gone a hundred paces, he spun abruptly and tossed a sparkling sphere toward the temple. Sarah was willing to bet everything she owned, which at that moment wasn't much, that his hands had been empty a moment before. The ball burst above the temple, and he said almost gleefully, "That should confuse even his best hunting hounds!" He took her hand in his and pulled her into a jog. Sarah hadn't gone more than a few paces before she cried out in pain and clutched at her side. Her bruises were far too extensive for rapid movement. Jareth seemed to understand what the problem was at once, and before she knew what was happening he tossed one of his sparkling crystals at her. It exploded above her head and she felt a river of warmth run down her left side. The pain receded to a vague ache, and Sarah held her left hand up to her face and watched the last of her bruise disappear. She gave a low whistle, and then Jareth yanked her onwards.  
  
She soon found that running cross-country for her college and potentially racing for her life from an army were two entirely different things. Her breath came unusually hard and her feet felt like blocks of wood until she began to get a stitch in her side, and then habit and training took over. It wasn't long after that before she began to feel much more optimistic about her situation, enjoying the rhythmic stretch and contraction of her muscles, especially after they had taken such a recent beating.  
  
They traveled at a half-trot for what felt like a very long time. The terrain was unchanging, mostly flat, rolling hills spotted here and there with boulders. Every so often they would see a clump of woods, and Jareth steered them away from those. It would have been a cheerful place except for the flat grayness of the sky. Every few miles Jareth listened for sounds of pursuit, and after a dozen such checks Sarah began to tire. She cast a surreptitious glance at her companion, but he showed no signs of flagging. Determined not to be outdone, Sarah set her will and kept going. A few miles further on, she started to wonder if she would be able to move the next morning. They had traveled almost marathon distances - at a relatively slow pace, but this was still more running than she had ever done before. Sarah groaned and gasped, "I give!" and slowed to a walk.  
  
Beside her, Jareth grinned triumphantly and wheezed, "If you insist." She peered at him suspiciously and noticed that he looked just as winded as she felt.  
  
"Do you think," she panted, "that that's far enough for one day?"  
  
"Now that you mention it," he gasped, "I do think so."  
  
She couldn't help herself. She started laughing, and had to stop walking because it took more air than she could spare. As she bent over, convulsed with laughter, she thought she heard a smothered chuckle from Jareth's direction. When she glanced up, however, he had his nose in the air, aloof and completely self-possessed. There may have been a look of surprise in his unorthodox eyes, however.  
  
Once she had rested for a bit, Sarah found that she could continue walking. They seemed to be moving in a fairly specific direction, and Sarah felt the same sense of unfinished business that she had noticed in the canyon in Arizona. Thinking of Pierce and the others was bizarre. They were so far removed from where she was, and she hoped they were all right and wondered if they were worried about her.  
  
The ground before them dipped between two hills, becoming a narrow vale that wound between them and was shaded with feathery-looking trees. Their feet turned down this path almost automatically, and they hadn't gone far when Sarah noticed signs of cultivation. The valley slowly widened to a broad basin where cropped wheat fields lay fallow on either hand, and the puling of sheep rose in the still air. As they progressed, small wooden buildings became visible beyond the bare fields with the dark shadows of people moved steadily between them.  
  
Jareth ran a critical eye over both of them and said, "This won't do." He produced another of his shining spheres out of thin air and cracked it in his hands. Sarah felt a shiver of wind pass over her and Jareth bared his teeth in an unpleasant grin. "Very appropriate, I think."  
  
Sarah looked down at her hands and gasped, "What have you done to me? I look like a gnome!" She held the gnarled, twisted appendages in front of her face and rage stirred in her gut. She balled the ugly, alien hands into fists and rounded on Jareth, then started as she saw a slim, unshaven soldier with two green eyes looking back in sardonic amusement. He was dressed in white armor instead of dark velvet and he wore an iron sword at his side.  
  
"It's, uh, very pretty," Sarah said. "What exactly did you do?"  
  
"Think, girl. Duath's men will be looking for a King and a maiden, not a soldier and a dwarf. As with all beauty, it is only an illusion. I see the sign of a tavern ahead." Jareth reached down and picked up a handful of gravel. "Convenient currency, don't you think?"  
  
"If you enchant it, that's stealing," Sarah said uncomfortably. "Besides, why would we want to go to a tavern?"  
  
The scruffy soldier gave her a dashing grin. "Where else can we hear all the news over a mug of ale? Come along, Hogwart."  
  
"Hogwart!" she cried. "My name is Sarah!"  
  
"Is it?" Jareth said dismissively. "You can't very well look like that and go about calling yourself Sarah. No, Higgle or Hogface is much more appropriate." He ambled unconcernedly toward the tavern, exciting no more than sidelong glances from the villagers.  
  
"I hate this man," Sarah grated, and came glowering along behind him. Her lumpy appearance earned some open stares which she inquisitively returned. Most of the people looked human, but she also saw a tall, willowy woman with indigo skin and reptilian eyes and a gnarled, knobby creature with a great fanged snout and inch-long claws. The looks that met hers were shuttered and hostile, full of suspicion. She was only too glad to enter the low wooden door of the tavern.  
  
Once inside, Jareth headed for a private table in the darkest corner. The few patrons who were indoors were a silent, seedy-looking crew. As soon as they sat down, Sarah brought up something that had been bothering her since they had left the Druid temple. "Jareth," she asked suspiciously, "do you know where we're headed?"  
  
"Away from Duath," he answered promptly.  
  
"Are you sure?" Sarah asked. "I have the feeling we're being steered towards somewhere."  
  
Jareth gave her a look that she was beginning to feel very familiar with. It was the same sort of look she might have given someone yesterday if she had been stopped on the street and told that she would be abducted by a physical impossibility and dumped into a cage surrounded by an army of goblins. "You ought to patent that look and put it in a bottle," she said crossly. "It would really curl people's hair. So far we've just been reacting. I mean, Duath kidnapped us and the first priority was to escape. Fine, we've escaped. But what now? I don't know about you, but I want to go home. And there's this burning question of why we were kidnapped in the first place."  
  
Jareth said slowly, "I believe that may be the first sensible thing you've said. Let us have a tankard of ale and hold a war council."  
  
Ale turned out to be a thin, sour beer that curdled in Sarah's empty stomach at the first sip. Jareth did some talking and some jingling of the gravel in his purse, which sounded suspiciously like coinage now, and they got a bowl of thin stew and a plate of bread. They also learned that the name of the town was Heldenholm and that Duath's soldiers were a common sight these days. Sarah realized she was ravenous and attacked the food, darting questions at Jareth between bites.  
  
"This is the first thing I've eaten in almost half a day," she began, "but we ran an incredible distance today. How is that possible?" Jareth raised an eyebrow at her enthusiastic table manners and began eating his own portion at a more dignified pace. His movements were as delicate as a cat's, exuding a refined grace that no illusion could disguise. The set of his head, the angle of his wrist - Sarah realized that the man in front of her must be the result of years of living in elegant society. "You said Duath would be looking for a King," she said softly.  
  
Green eyes glinted at her. "To answer your first question," Jareth said, "that is part of the magic of the Eternal Land. Those who live here are sustained by it and live to a very great age. We will need little food and less sleep during our stay here. My world and yours are like two sides of the same coin. Between them lies Tir-na-nOg, the middle of our metaphorical coin, in which charming domain we now find ourselves." Sarah happily recognized story time. The fact that magic was real, even if not in her own world, was intoxicating. Jareth continued, "To travel from my world to yours, one must pass through this place. Our legends say that communication between the Underground and the Upper Country was once common through a twin set of Gates, monumental feats of both architecture and magic. A thousand years ago a madman raised an army of criminals and mercenaries and seized control of the road through Tir-na-nOg, intending to invade the Upper Country and then subjugate the Underground. Obviously neither world was conquered. Legend has it that forces from both realms rallied to slaughter his monsters, and the earth ran black with their blood. Even today, the fields of the Underground that lie where the Black Gate is supposed to have stood bear no fruit. I rode there often as a child, so I can bear witness to that tale. Before he could be captured, the madman, a renegade who descended from one of the great noble houses of the Underground, realized his defeat and retreated to Tir-na-nOg, sealing the Black Gate behind him with words of enormous power. The Underground was cut off from the Uplands, but nearly a generation of peace followed. When the old High King lay dying, the Gate cracked opened one last time. A massive attack almost succeeded in breaking through. We still hunt the descendents of those creatures in the wilder lands."  
  
"Saint George and his Dragon," Sarah murmured.  
  
"The family name of that madman," Jareth said coolly, "was Duath."  
  
Sarah blinked and swallowed hard. "This can't possibly be the same Duath, can it? You said people live for a long time here, but a thousand years?"  
  
Jareth spun a sliver of bread thoughtfully between his fingers. "The rift into which we fell was different than a Gate," he mused. "The strongest magic in the Underground was used to seal the Black Gate after the last attack. There is, of course, the Gate of the Sun, the sister Gate which leads to your own lands, but you cannot open one without opening the other. Like a river, you see, the road through the Deathless Lands flows with power, which requires both an entrance and an egress. Duath mentioned sacrifice. Blood magic might just be strong enough to crack that seal." Jareth began crumbling the unfortunate crust to bits. His tone got steadily darker, and Sarah could hear the wild current in him rising to the surface. "It's disgustingly clever. Opening a small, harmless rift into both worlds would be sure to attract the attention of the strongest mages in each realm. By trapping us, Duath removed the principal strength that would oppose him and availed himself of two very powerful blood sacrifices in a single stroke." His fist convulsed on the table. "It was most cleverly done," he hissed.  
  
"But could it be the same man as before?"  
  
Jareth's long fingers roamed restlessly over the table, searching for something else to destroy, but no small objects were forthcoming. "A thousand years might pass like a single decade in Tir-na-nOg," he said.  
  
"Could he be a descendent?"  
  
Jareth shook his head and said, "Impossible. A man can be killed in the Eternal Land, but natural death does not exist. As there is no death, there is no life - no children are born. In the old days, some supposedly came to Tir-na-nOg seeking eternal life, but they quickly found that the price was more than they were willing to pay. To never see the sun set, to never hold your grandchildren? I pity Duath's followers, trapped here when he sealed the Gates. You must have noticed the look in the villagers' eyes. Like walking death." Jareth shuddered. "Maybe they launched a second attack in a desperate attempt to escape, rather than a desire to conquer."  
  
"Duath said he was expecting you," Sarah said thoughtfully, "but how is that possible if both Gates are closed?"  
  
An elegant flick of his fingers dismissed her words. "A powerful scrying spell could identify the King who ruled the land where he planned to open his rift. The strongest mages are always Kings. Otherwise, the family loses its power, and its throne, to those with greater abilities. I imagine Duath has been spying on our worlds - though where he got the power for it, or for that damned rift, is a mystery. That blackguard simply didn't have the aura for it."  
  
"So you are a King?" Sarah pressed.  
  
The soldier's mouth twisted and he said sardonically, "King of the Goblins, Lord of all the Eastern Marches - those parts that haven't fallen entirely to bits, at any rate - and heir to obscurity, at your service." The last words were bitten off and steeped in bitterness. Sarah felt a strong urge to take his hand in hers, and hastily sat on her hands as a preventative measure. This King didn't want pity, and he'd probably bite her hand off if she tried to offer it to him.  
  
She cleared her throat. "We'd better get one thing straight right now. Duath may have been expecting you, but there's a reason I was a surprise. I don't have any magic, no one on Earth does. Well, except Pierce maybe, he's always thought he had something special. I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time."  
  
Jareth's eyebrows rose. "No magic? Surely not. The Upland mages were once famous for their power. No, they may be hidden, but I am sure they exist. They probably play their secret games of manipulation behind every throne, building their wealth and influence unbeknownst to you. The Underground is full of such schemers."  
  
"But Pierce even started an organization to try and find people with something like magic," Sarah argued. "The closest we got were crazy tarot ladies who seemed to be right half the time. He owns every book of spells and witchcraft you can find. He's been inducted into every secret society known to man, and they might pretend to be mystics but it's all mundane once you get down to the core. And Earth doesn't have any thrones any more. Well, not many at least," she amended.  
  
Head cocked in disbelief, Jareth demanded, "Then how do you govern yourselves? Surely you have not descended into anarchy!"  
  
"The country I live in is a democracy," Sarah explained. "We vote for representatives and they make the laws."  
  
The look of horror on Jareth's face was almost comical. "The commoners decide who rules them? The ruling class depends on a popular vote? Barbaric! Such a thing undermines every principle of modern society."  
  
"And your system is better?" Sarah asked, riled. "Absolute monarchy? Serfdom? People starving in the streets while you dine on caviar and champagne in your shining castle?"  
  
"I never heard such rubbish," Jareth scoffed. "A King is supremely responsible for the welfare of his subjects. The good of the kingdom depends on a benevolent monarch. Any tyrant would be ostracized, completely cast off from society."  
  
"I can't believe that everybody shares your altruism," Sarah said.  
  
"They can't afford not to. It's a matter of politics. All the monarchs are very much involved in each other's affairs, you see, and unsupported dynasties are quickly undermined. You must be a very inconsequential kingdom indeed to escape their meddling," Jareth said, his tone suddenly smooth and distant.  
  
Aha. So that was why he was so angry at the world.. Fitting that tidbit into the puzzle that was gradually forming a picture of her reluctant companion, Sarah said, "So where does this leave us? Can we go home and warn everyone? No one on Earth will believe me, except Pierce."  
  
She caught the flash of his eyes as he darted a glance in her direction. "Who is this Pierce you keep mentioning?" he asked in a lazy voice. "Is he a man of great influence and power?"  
  
"No way," she said, laughing. "He's a loony. The sweetest guy you ever met. He has gobs of money and he's very generous with it, but nobody pays any attention to him. Even the tabloids leave him alone now."  
  
"Tabloids?"  
  
"Yeah. On account of, well, you know. Terry." Sarah could tell he had no idea what she was talking about. "Forget it," she sighed. "He's like a grandfather to me, but I don't think he'd be able to do much about this."  
  
"We don't even know what sort of threat we might be facing," Jareth said. He suddenly sounded almost cheerful, Sarah thought. Well, there was no accounting for what adversity brought out in some people. "A theory of possible invasion by a thousand-year-old madman will raise eyebrows even in my country. What's that sticking out of your jacket?"  
  
"What? Oh." Sarah looked down her nose at her ripped shirt, which had gradually worked its way out of the jacket as she ate until it squatted like a grotesque jabot under her neck. She was interested to see that the illusion Jareth had set on her apparently left her clothes untouched. "Um, I had to find some sort of disguise before I came to rescue you, but I didn't want to leave my clothes with Duath." She shuddered. "There's no telling what sick thing he'd think up to do with them. I had a really strong feeling that I shouldn't tell him my name or give him anything of mine. Is that crazy?" She pulled the shirt all the way out, and a rain of paper fell out of it.  
  
Idly gathering the papers, Jareth said, "It's not crazy at all. Duath obviously has developed certain unsavory talents, and you never know what a dark mage will try to use. Best not to give them anything." He cast a glance at the papers in his hand, then went very still. "Where did you get these?"  
  
Sarah looked over at the bundle. "I grabbed them off Duath's desk before I left. I forgot all about them. What do they say?"  
  
The script was strange to her eyes, very flowery in some ways and in other ways full of harsh angles and sharp lines, but it obviously meant something to Jareth. His eyes practically devoured the first page, and he murmured, "A letter to Malocoli Duath from someone signing himself Draeda Duath, detailing troop movements and plans to rise against a group of insurrectionists who had seized a certain piece of land in an attempt to interfere with what he ostentatiously refers to as 'The Plan.' It seems that the madman must indeed have had a son, and that son must have fled with him into Tir-na-nOg. 'Draeda' is an ancient term used by the head of a family." He flipped to the next page, lips moving as he scanned it. "Reports of supplies dwindling dangerously low due to another failed harvest. Not surprising when all import is cut off from a land that stagnates when left to itself. The miracle is that they lasted this long, and they must have spent magic like water to come this far. Otherwise, nothing of significance." Jareth continued through the pages, throwing out isolated words and phrases, and Sarah impatiently moved around the table to peer over his shoulder even though she couldn't read a single word of it.  
  
"Ah, here we are," Jareth said, holding up the second-to-last page. "An unfinished letter from Malocoli to his father, informing him that the signs are right and that an attempt will be made to advance to the next step as soon as possible. Two strong mages are anticipated. the main strength of the army is in position around the Black Gate. and here, at the bottom, he writes 'I have every hope that the Gate will be opened within the month.'" Jareth dropped the paper thoughtfully to the table. "I'd say that this confirms our theory of a planned invasion. Now all that's left is to decide to do about it."  
  
He paid for their meal with gravel and asked the barkeeper if there was an inn close by. Receiving a surly reply that there were rooms overhead aplenty, Jareth dug out more gravel and they were guided up a narrow set of stairs to a pair of low doorways. "We can both use a rest," he said curtly in response to Sarah's look, and ducked through one of the doors.  
  
Sarah took one look inside her room and headed back downstairs. The barkeeper gave her a look of complete incredulity when she asked for a place to bathe, but seemed to decide that she was probably mad, and a mad dwarf was best humored. "If people don't stop giving me those looks, I'm going to convince myself I really have lost my mind," Sarah sighed as the grumbling fellow led her down another narrow passage to a back room.  
  
It turned out to be a cramped stable, and the bath was a horse trough at one end. "Oh god," Sarah whispered when she saw it. "I can't - I just can't." Running back upstairs, she banged on Jareth's door and nearly fell inside when he yanked it open under her fist.  
  
"What is it?" he asked irritably.  
  
"I feel absolutely filthy," she told him, "and there doesn't seem to be - that is, I was wondering - oh, for goodness sake. Can you use your magic and put a tub of hot water in my room?"  
  
His eyes traveled over her, and she felt herself blushing furiously. Funny the way his gaze had taken almost the same path that Duath's had, yet when Jareth was the man doing the looking, she didn't feel threatened, only embarrassed. "You do look a little on the shabby side," he remarked.  
  
"Thank you very much for pointing that out," Sarah snapped. "If you'd be so kind, I'll see what I can do about that."  
  
He laughed and produced one of his crystal baubles, balancing it on the tips of his fingers. "My lady," he said mockingly, bowing as he offered it to her. She took it, nose in the air, and retreated to her room with as much dignity as she could muster.  
  
As soon as she closed her door, the crystal hopped out of her hand and dropped to the floor, turning into a very elegant marble tub full of steaming water. A row of soaps and jars appeared at one side, and half a dozen soft towels folded themselves on the bed in readiness. "Heaven!" she cried happily. As she lowered herself contentedly into the near-scalding water, she realized that her hands looked like her own hands again and her body certainly looked like hers and not some scabby dwarf's. Presumably Jareth had lifted the illusion when he handed her the bauble.  
  
Sarah scrubbed herself all over and washed her hair twice, noticing with pleasure that the water never seemed to get dirty. When she finally arose, a towel was spread open and waiting for her. "You know," she remarked to it as it wrapped her in warm folds, "I could really get used to this." When she turned to look for her clothes, she found that they had disappeared and a pageboy sort of uniform in colors of brown and gold lay on the bed instead. "If it's clean, that's all I ask," she said, but she couldn't help feeling just a bit uneasy about how all this was coming about. Surely Jareth wasn't watching? Just in case, she dressed herself under the towel and tried to convince herself that she was being ridiculous.  
  
Once she had pulled the brown shirt over her head (which, she had to admit, was a real improvement over the grubby and oversized uniform she'd stolen from Duath's tent), the marble bath folded in on itself and turned elegantly into a small chair and sitting table such as might be found in a lady's boudoir. Sarah sat down, picked up a large soft-haired brush, and proceeded to discover just how much she had taken blow dryers for granted. It took a ridiculously long time to towel and brush her hair into a state of slight damp. She had half-risen from the chair with the intent to make the best of it and go to bed, when suddenly she stopped and reached for the mirror. Setting it on the edge of the table, she took a long, hard look at herself.  
  
She saw a girl with an oval face, pale cheeks, and bones that could be called fine if the beholder was generous. Her dark hair was beginning to get its gentle curl even in its state of semi-dampness, and tumbled unbound to her waist. Sarah brushed it absently and saw the curls spring back against the brush. Unruly, she thought. That's what she was. Not elegant or graceful or cultured, or any of the other fifty adjectives that came to mind when she thought of noble houses and great lineages of Kings and Queens. She was as un-princesslike as you could get. What else was she? "Honest. Earnest. Willing. Brash. Headstrong," she labeled herself in the mirror. Her eyes, she admitted, were a nice, comfortable chocolate color, but they didn't sparkle with mysterious allure or dazzle with otherworldly beauty. "'She walks in beauty/like the night' and the Goblin King thinks her a fright," Sarah whispered. She laid a finger against the glass, then rose abruptly and went to bed.  
  
As she lay facing the pitted wall, Sarah found that her mind insisted on replaying the terrible scene in Duath's tent over and over again. Terror welled up as fresh as when it had happened and she felt completely bereft, alone in a strange country and surrounded by people who would cheerfully kill her, or worse. Before she could prepare for it, the silent tears had turned into heaving sobs. She pressed her hands to her mouth but it was too late to hold in that first betraying sound. Hopefully the walls would be too thick for Jareth to hear. Curling herself into a fetal ball, Sarah smothered the sounds of her weeping and gave herself up to misery. So intent was she on purging her sorrow that she barely noticed as a pair of strong arms picked her up and settled her against a warm body. Clinging to him, she sobbed herself to sleep on brocaded velvet, and dreamed of wildflowers with sharp, hidden thorns. 


	4. Chapter 4

When Sarah woke up, the first thing she remembered was that she was supposed to babysit her brother today. For some reason, the thought of his little fat face made her intensely sad. "That's curious," she murmured sleepily into the pillow. "Is something wrong with him? Is he sick?" Feeling reasonably sure that Toby was fine, Sarah opened her eyes and frowned at the wall. The kernel of sorrow wouldn't go away and her eyes felt puffy and sore, as if someone had scraped sandpaper over her corneas. As she focused on the knotted boards in front of her nose, memory hit her hard. It felt remarkably like getting punched in the stomach, and her breath whooshed out in a gasp. She sat up and looked around the narrow room, which had no windows because they would only let in the half-light that hung unchanging over Tir-na-nOg. Sarah clutched the thin blanket to her chin, and the admission that had been creeping around the back of her brain for a long time now finally made its way into conscious thought. She whispered to the chilly room, "I might never go home again."  
  
Strange that she had read any number of stories that featured exile of a character, or heard real-life stories of refugees on the news, but had never imagined the feeling of utter desolation that swept over her as she finally faced the stark truth that there was a good chance she would never see her family again. Sarah had made the choice to stay away for the past eighteen months, but she had always known there was a home to go back to. Things had just started to turn around between her stepmother and herself. The thought of never seeing her dad again was unbearable, and the thought of never seeing Toby was devastating. Numbly, Sarah sat in bed and tried to come to grips with the idea of being cut off from all her family and friends, forever. It hurt far too much to even approach the concept, much less learn to cope with it. "Well then," Sarah whispered. Her voice came out weak and cracked, and she cringed at its hopeless tone. Clearing her throat, she said forcefully, "I'll find a way home. That's all there is to it. I refuse to accept any other possibility."  
  
She flung the blanket aside and hurried to Jareth's door. Her hand was poised to knock when suddenly she remembered the smell of wildflowers. He had rocked her to sleep while she wept out her heart to him. Mortification froze her in mid-knock as blood rushed to her cheeks. Oh lord! What would he say? Would he smirk at her in that insufferable way of his, and hold it over her head for the rest of time that he had seen her at her weakest? She was sure he had spent the night congratulating himself on being his strong, invulnerable self. She couldn't see him reduced to tears on anybody's account. Suddenly wildly angry with the man, she drew back her fist and let fly at his door. With rather unfortunate timing, Jareth chose that particular moment to exit his chamber.  
  
As he flung his door wide, Sarah yelled in surprise and barely managed to divert her blow, grazing his ear instead of punching his nose. Jareth emitted a hoarse shout and leapt backwards, hooked the edge of his heel on the door, and vanished quite suddenly from Sarah's field of view. Sticking her head timidly around the door, she asked the prostrate monarch, "Are you all right?"  
  
He regarded the ceiling in silence for a moment, then replied, "I shall never quite recover from the sight of a red-faced, hedge-haired, violent banshee flinging herself at me first thing in the morning. I expect to have nightmares of the incident henceforward." He got haughtily to his feet and inquired, "I presume there is a reason, other than an impulsive desire to take a few years off my life, for such an enthusiastic attack on my person?"  
  
Sarah said guiltily, "I've , uh, been thinking about our situation, and I thought we ought to decide on a course of action. I want to go home."  
  
Jareth cocked his blue eye at her and said, "To do that, you would have to open the Sun Gate, which requires removing the seal from the Black Gate, which is exactly why Duath brought us here. You realize what that means."  
  
Sarah raised her chin defiantly. "I didn't mean to imply that I would help the creep. I love my world. I know what I have to do." As soon as she said it, she realized with some surprise that it was true. Sometime in the night, or in the uncertain moments since waking, her subconscious had sorted her options and she had made her decision. She felt her resolve crystallize into a sharp dagger of determination. Casting a glance at Jareth, she added, "I need help, though."  
  
He came to her and leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed over his chest. His wild eyes bored into hers and he murmured, "That depends entirely on what you have decided to do."  
  
Sarah licked her lips. He was awfully close, and the force of his gaze was almost physically overwhelming. "Duath needs to be stopped," she whispered. "Men like him, they find a way. He'll break that seal eventually, and the Underground needs to be warned before that happens. You have to use your magic to get yourself back there, or at least talk with someone and let them know what's happening."  
  
"Abandoning you here?" he asked idly.  
  
Although she felt herself pale at the thought, Sarah nodded firmly. "If necessary."  
  
Jareth leaned closer. Sarah went rigid, darting panicked glances toward him out of the corner of her eye. Her knees seemed to be turning to jelly for some reason. A strand of his unkempt hair brushed her neck and she jumped as if she had received an electric shock. His mouth was almost touching her ear, his voice a sweet warmth on her cheek as he breathed the word, "Impossible."  
  
His breath on her cheek released her from her state of semi-paralysis. "What?" she gasped, jerking backwards.  
  
His golden eye flared lazily at her from eyes suddenly half lidded as he leaned casually back against the wall, apparently oblivious of her discomfort. "Quite impossible," he repeated in a velvet purr. "A door such as Duath created swings only one way. Hence the need for Gates; otherwise we could all waltz in and out of Tir-na-nOg as we pleased. In places where the walls between the worlds are thin, I could scry into the Uplands or the Underground, but I could no more get a message through than I could transport myself across the barrier."  
  
Sarah understood the gist of his speech, but she was having a hard time concentrating on his words. Her head was spinning in a very peculiar way. By sheer force of will, she dragged her thoughts back into the realm of coherence. "So we can't get a message out," she gabbled. "And we can't get ourselves out either. We'll have to find out what Duath's got - how likely it is that he'll break the seal - and then do what we can to sabotage him. We don't know anything about his army, or his father, or anything."  
  
"That does seem to be the first order of business," Jareth confirmed, and turned his body to slide past her into the hall. Raising an eyebrow, he said, "Well, come on then." There was a peculiar, almost self-satisfied gleam in his eye. Sarah shook herself and issued a firm internal order to calm down and be sensible. Jareth's behavior might be bizarre, but that was no excuse for the way her stomach was churning. At least he hadn't brought up her storm of weeping, and that was almost sensitive of him - which was an adjective she never would have expected to apply to the Goblin King. In her experience, he alternated between "arrogant" and "insufferable." Sarah gritted her teeth and followed him down the stairs.  
  
As she stepped into the taproom, she heard the crunch of breaking crystal, followed by a shiver of wind that passed over her face. She was not surprised to see that she was now following the scruffy soldier in white and that her hands looked like two gnarled tree branches when she held them in front of her face. Oh well, there were worse things than looking like a short, misplaced Ent for a few hours.  
  
The same barkeeper stood sullenly rubbing a dirty cloth over an earthenware mug, and Jareth engaged him in casual conversation about the likelihood of a wandering soldier finding work hereabouts. Sarah stood at his elbow feeling like a conspicuously ugly third wheel until Jareth seemed satisfied and nodded at her to follow him out of the tavern.  
  
As they stepped outside, Sarah sucked in a deep breath. The air was still and not particularly refreshing, but at least it was free from the fetid stink of food and bodies. She grinned at Jareth and said, "Where to?"  
  
The green-eyed soldier shot her a snooty look, but the corners of his mouth quirked rebelliously upward as he replied, "No one in particular has come into town recently, so we are safe for the moment. I think we'll have a little look round."  
  
They proceeded in a direction opposite from that in which they had arrived, and Sarah felt her spirits grow lighter with every step. The town was by no means bustling, but a steady stream of people passed them in the street and Sarah eagerly observed each one. Her fears of never going home were gradually subsumed by a sense that she was out on a once-in-a-lifetime adventure. After all, she had always dreamed of discovering magic or uncovering evidence of a fairy world and here she was, walking elbow to elbow with a real Goblin King.  
  
Jareth seemed to be looking for something in particular. He gave most of the wooden signs no more than a passing glance, outpacing Sarah easily with his long strides, but at last he gave a satisfied "Hmph!" at a placard bearing a crossed sword and hammer burned into it and turned sharply down a narrow alley. A few steps later, they came to a large open area, roofed with wooden beams and glowing with heat. A squat, burly man with a ruddy, soot-smeared face stood with knobby hands braced on a low trestle, poring over a much-abused parchment. Black eyes flickered to Jareth, dismissed him, and settled on Sarah.  
  
The little man let out a roar, then limped ponderously around his table to grab her hand. "By beard and flame! 'Tis sixty year an' more since I seen a blood brother. Well met, son o' my sire, well met indeed!" He pumped her hand enthusiastically, then pawed about under the trestle to produce a couple of battered cups. "Ale, by thunder! We'll drink to old times - to days when beer ran thick an' sweet, not this pigswill we brew today. Eh, cousin?" He dipped the cups into a small barrel close at hand and passed them to Sarah and Jareth. "To the Old King, may he rest in peace," the black-haired man (who, Sarah realized, must be an actual Dwarf) intoned solemnly, quaffing his mug in a single pull.  
  
Well, Sarah thought, when in Rome. . . Mimicking his gesture, she growled in her gruffest voice, "To the Old King." Closing her eyes and praying for strength, she downed the contents of her cup. Womanfully suppressing her gag reflex, she saw Jareth's eyes dancing in amusement across his cup of the rancid brew, and threw him a baleful glare.  
  
"But it is dark times indeed when a son o' the blood travels with a long- legged fellow such as this 'un," the man continued, fierce black brows drawing together as he waved his paw at Jareth, who bristled. "I am Harbargast, once of a mountain clan as was the bravest, fiercest sons that ever been. When the Gate closed, o' course, we fell to in-fighting, and then was easy prey for them as needed blood, for the long-legs outnumbered us by thousands. I thought I was the last o' us, 'til now." His fierce black eyes filled with tears, and he dragged Sarah into a smelly, unsteady embrace.  
  
Her conscience was screaming at her six ways from Sunday, but there was more at stake than a poor old Dwarf's feelings. Making up a name on the spot, Sarah growled, "Hoggle at your service." Inspiration struck, and she gripped Harbargast tightly by the shoulder. "My clan was left on the other side of the Gate. What would you say if I told you the Gate could be opened again?"  
  
"I'd say you're dreamin'," Harbargast said. "I hear that talk too. Every hundred year or so there comes a rumor that young Duath found a way out. I were at the first few gatherings, but naught came of it except more bloodshed. Cor, must be only a few hundred of us left, all told. We been slaughterin' each other for nigh on a thousand year, now."  
  
Sarah raised an eyebrow at Jareth, who looked just as surprised as she felt. An army of hundreds? What threat could there be from that small number, even if the Underground was taken by surprise? Not to mention the fact that she herself had seen what must have been at least a hundred dead men, newly killed in battle just before she arrived in this world.  
  
Jareth casually leaned forward and said, "It's touching to see such a happy reunion. I'm a plainsman myself, and I travel with Higgle-" ("Hoggle," Sarah hissed) "because I saved his life," he finished smoothly. Sarah glared at him. "We've been wandering the wilds these many years, and now we're looking for work. Is Duath recruiting, do you know?"  
  
Harbargast helped himself to another cup of ale, and to her chagrin filled Sarah's cup too. "Well," he said slowly, "normalwise I don't mix in long- leg business. But if a son o' the blood is involved, I must tell ye - get ye back to the wilds, and come ne'er again near to Duath." The look on the Dwarf's face was impossible for Sarah to read. Despair? Denial? He continued, "What I heard, I won't repeat, for if it's false it ain't worth repeatin' and if it's true, can't no one do nothin' about it. But I'll have you know a band of Duath's finest, most trusted men come through here a few days ago. They said Duath had a new plan, and any creature under the sky with an ounce o' sanity would join 'em to stop it. They headed up to Hells Hills, and we hear there was a fearsome fight. Not a man left alive." Harbargast's voice had dropped to a husky whisper, and Sarah found herself shivering at the dark images his words conjured in her heart.  
  
Jareth did not seem to be so affected. "A man needs to earn a living," he said easily. "Where are these hundreds camped?"  
  
Harbargast stared at him, then stood up. "I ain't helpin' a son o' my sire commit suicide," he rumbled. "You, long-legs, can get ye gone. Hoggle," he continued, turning to Sarah, "I know a life debt is a heavy burden, but ye may stay happily here, with me. When the horrors of this place become too much, we'll help each other out o' the world, but not before."  
  
Sarah laid a gentle hand on his. "I must stay with him," she said simply. The words rang in her ears like clear silver bells. As they left her lips, almost like magic, the lights went out.  
  
Darkness engulfed her. Thick, impenetrable, complete blackness. Sarah cried out and reached to where her memory told her Jareth was standing, and she sobbed in relief as his forearm flailed into hers. Clinging to Jareth with one hand and with the other clutched by Harbargast, Sarah squeaked, "What is it? What happened?"  
  
"I've no idea," Jareth muttered.  
  
Just as suddenly as the darkness came, it was gone. The new light, however, was not the half-light of Tir-na-nOg, or even the warm sunlight of back home. It almost seemed like fluorescent light. Its harsh glare accentuated shadows and lines, and Sarah realized by the hollows under Jareth's mismatched eyes that he had not slept well after all.  
  
She realized something else as well, just as Harbargast flung her hand from him with an oath and a hoarse cry of, "Ye ain't no son, no son at all!"  
  
"Jareth, I can see you," she told him urgently.  
  
He turned his head to listen. "They know we're here," he said. "Come on." They ran back up the alley and Jareth popped his head out into the street. "No one official in sight," he reported. "Our only chance is to make it out of town before they find us. Quickly!"  
  
They sprinted from the alley, keeping close to the houses at the side of the street, staying in whatever shadow they could find. Under the strange white light, though, there was hardly anywhere to hide. Sarah expected shouts to follow them at any moment, but miraculously they seemed to have escaped detection. She saw the last row of houses and put on an extra burst of speed, only to pull up short as she ran into Jareth's back. He pointed wordlessly in front of him.  
  
A wall of light stretched before them, shivering and rippling with transient, prism-like refractions as it arched overhead to disappear behind the houses. Sarah didn't know what walking through the shining stuff might do to them, but she was fairly sure it wouldn't be pleasant. Looking to all sides, she saw that it had been formed in the shape of a dome that completely enclosed Heldenholm and its inhabitants. She moaned in despair. No wonder their escape had been so easy! Their pursuers had no need to tire themselves out chasing panicked townsfolk; they would simply round everyone up and search the town from top to bottom at their leisure.  
  
"What are we going to do?" she groaned. "Can you get past it?"  
  
Jareth's face was a mask of concentration. "I'm trying," he grated, "but the thing's damned strong! It's drawing an enormous amount of power. I can't hope to breach it."  
  
"Is there another way out?" Sarah grasped desperately at straws.  
  
"Not a chance. They'll have thought of that."  
  
She heard the chink of booted feet on the road, coming closer. "We're trapped!"  
  
The proud angle of his mouth constricted, and then he raised his elegant profile and said, "We can fight. I expect I can take a score or more down with me, and I certainly don't plan on being captured for Duath's sacrifice. Stay behind me. I will protect you for as long as possible. If I can kill the wizard maintaining this wall, you have a decent chance."  
  
Sarah stood, numb and frozen, barely able to grasp what he was saying. He looked so regal, so fierce as he calmly announced his own death. Her heart contracted, and she whispered, "There must be another way."  
  
His only reply was to turn back down the road. "Get ready to run," he told her over his shoulder.  
  
Sarah opened her mouth to tell him that she wasn't going anywhere, but suddenly her stomach folded in on itself. Her hands and feet went numb, and streaks of light and dark chased themselves across her vision. "Oh hell," she hissed through gritted teeth. Her breath started to come hard, and she fought it like she'd never fought it before. She could not black out on him and leave him to face Duath alone! She would not submit to the darkness! The pressure behind her eyes became unbearable and she fell to her knees, struggling to breath. She croaked out a desperate plea for help, but it sounded horribly thin even to her own ears. In the distance, she heard a clear, high yell. The fingers of blackness at the edge of her vision thickened into huge hands that came down to cover her eyes, fill her mouth, and carry her away.  
  
She smelled burning, and fell bodiless through a tower of smoke lit with cinders that scorched her nonexistent skin. A huge wind blew through a valley of dust, and a clock chimed thirteen hours. She hung suspended in darkness, then slowly realized that she lay on a bed of feathers, their fine shafts tickling her cheeks.  
  
No, that wasn't right. Sarah frowned, and cracked an eye open. Jareth's wild hair completely obscured her vision, and a few unruly strands had settled on her face. Irritably, she brushed them aside, and tried to sit up. A grip like a vise settled across her hips and shoulders, and she struggled and began to yell.  
  
"Shut up, you fool girl!" his familiar tenor rasped at her. "We're still their quarry, and much too close for comfort."  
  
She stilled and tried to figure out what on earth was going on. Duath's soldiers obviously didn't have them yet. Were they still in Heldenholm? Brushing Jareth's blond mane out of the way, Sarah could see rolling hills, certainly no houses or signs of a town. She was slung across Jareth's shoulders like a sack of grain, and she was utterly and thoroughly embarrassed.  
  
"I'm sorry I fainted," she said angrily, furious with herself, "but you can put me down now. It never happens twice in a row. I can walk."  
  
He paid no attention to her. She waited a few uncomfortable minutes until his shoulder blades really started to dig into her chest and abdomen, then started to squirm. "I'm all right, honest," she protested. "I just get these stupid fainting fits once in a while. Put me down!"  
  
In one smooth motion he swung her down from his shoulders onto her feet. A little dizzy from the rapid descent, Sarah shook her head to clear it, asking, "What happened? Where are we?"  
  
Jareth was looking at her with a most peculiar expression, intent and searching. Apparently finding nothing amiss, he shrugged and told her, "I heard you cry for help. When I turned, you had collapsed on the ground. The next few moments were very confused; there was an explosion of some sort on the other side of town - I think the residents were a little put off by Duath's presence - and smoke started pouring out of every building. I simply slung you over my shoulders and walked out of the village. The explosion must have either killed or distracted Duath's pet mage, because the barrier had been torn to shreds by the time I got clear of the smoke."  
  
Sarah whistled. "I'll have to remember to send the mayor of Heldenholm a thank-you note." They continued on in silence, but Sarah noticed that Jareth kept sneaking furtive glances at her when he thought she wasn't looking. She was used to that. People either got very pitying or very protective of you after you fainted for no reason. Sarah was completely annoyed with herself, and a little puzzled as well. Usually the episodes came months apart, sometimes years, but here were two incidents in as many days. Maybe magic didn't agree with her system. Sarah sighed and tried to push it out of her mind. There was nothing she could do about it anyway.  
  
As they went, Jareth outlined a plan of action. He had found a crude map at the bottom of the papers Sarah had taken from Duath's tent, and he showed her a blob that seemed to be Heldenholm and another, much larger blob, surrounded by a spidery sort of symbol, that seemed to be the Gate. "You were right about being steered somewhere," he told her. "That town lies along the old road between the Gates. Some vestige of power may call lost travelers to it and steer them one way or the other. As luck would have it, we've been heading for the Black Gate all along, and I imagine we're only a few days away. We'll reconnoiter, determine what resources Duath has at his disposal, and make a final decision as to our course of action."  
  
Sarah craned her head to get a better angle and asked, "What is this funny design all around the Gate?"  
  
Jareth looked at it for a long time, and then dismissed it perfunctorily. "Probably nothing. It can't possibly be right. Someone trying to discourage visitors, that's all."  
  
"That sounds sort of sinister to me," Sarah said nervously. Jareth did not deign to respond.  
  
They traveled in silence for a while, until Sarah found the quiet oppressive and began to talk. She told Jareth about her family, her college, and her hopes of being an author someday. "Or an actress," she confessed, "but even though writing's hard, it's not nearly as unrealistic as hoping to be the next Bernadette Peters. I just want something that will let me have some independence."  
  
He listened attentively, and when she ran dry of subject material he surprised her by telling her about his kingdom. "The population is roughly half Goblin, half Man," he explained when she asked about his title. "Most of my duties involve keeping the peace between the two peoples. Fortunately, Goblins have no great affinity for cities. They prefer the independence of the plains. We are no large kingdom, but we survive. The Eastern Marches were once the pride of all the Underground," he said proudly. "The Black Gate opened a few short miles from my castle, and like any port city we were famous for our wealth, our artisans, and our universities. But it is many years since the Gate was sealed, and now my House is sunk in obscurity." His eyes grew dark and his gaze turned inward.  
  
Intensely conscious of a burgeoning sense of camaraderie, Sarah quickly sought to distract him from his gloomy thoughts by telling him about all the ways she had found to get into trouble when she was a child. He actually threw back his head and laughed in a few places, which pleased her to an absurd degree. He then returned the favor and regaled her with tales of a wild, princely upbringing. Sarah even found herself able to talk about her mother, once she discovered that his own mother had also died when he was very young. Although time didn't flow normally in Tir-na-nOg, Jareth seemed to have an uncannily accurate internal clock. Three days of walking and talking passed more quickly than Sarah would have believed, and then they saw a distant haze of smoke rising from a hundred campfires, and knew they had found Duath's army.  
  
Jareth didn't want to disguise them with magic until he had to, because he suspected that Duath had employed a very sensitive witch-sniffer to track them to Heldenholm. They made themselves as grubby as possible by mundane means and crept stealthily toward the army. The land sloped gently upward as they went, and they encountered no sentries or any sign of surveillance. "Once of the perks of being the only army in the world," Jareth muttered. At last they made their way, crawling on their bellies, to the top of an embankment and peered over the other side for a look at Duath's army.  
  
The first thing that came to Sarah's mind was an anthill. A huge valley stretched away before her with a hill at its center, like a bowl turned upside down in the middle of a giant plate, and the plate was crawling with little black specks. They were everywhere, thousands upon thousands of them, and their churning, roiling motion on the floor of the valley made her stomach feel a little queasy.  
  
"How many do you think there are?" she asked Jareth, her eyes wide at the sight of the army spread out below her.  
  
Jareth made a quick estimate and swore under his breath. "Hundreds of thousands at least. A million, possibly. And we can't see the other side of the valley from here."  
  
"That's true," Sarah agreed. "There's that weird hill in the middle of it. Look, it has a tower sticking out of it or something. Do you think that's where the Gate is?"  
  
Jareth continued to count and swear, ignoring her question, but Sarah thought that it was the only possible place the Gate could be. There was something odd about the hill, though. Although it was free from the crawling mass of bodies, it still seemed to be moving somehow. Her eyes had a hard time focusing on its slope, as if light found it slippery. She squinted and concentrated, and gradually began to see a pattern emerging. From this far away, it appeared as a tiny, twisting conglomeration of stone. At first, her eyes refused to separate any particular part from the rest except for the black tower at its center, reaching skyward like a decrepit claw. As she looked harder, she saw that the hill was riddled with passages turning hither and thither. In fact, it looked just like -  
  
"A maze," she said.  
  
Jareth froze. He turned his stately head to look her full in the face and asked, "What did you say?"  
  
"Look," she said, pointing down to the hill. "It's a maze, with that tower in the center."  
  
Jareth turned to follow her finger, an unreadable expression on his face. He stared at the hill for a long time, looking as if he had been turned to stone himself. "If I find the man who did this," he said finally, "he will wish he had never been born."  
  
Sarah looked at him askance. "It's just a maze."  
  
"It is a perversion," Jareth spat.  
  
She drew breath to question him further, but at that moment they both heard the soft rattle of feet on loose stones behind them. Jareth cursed again, and Sarah had to admit that he knew quite a lot of creative swear words. As silently as possible, she rolled over and looked down the slope below her. One of the soldiers was coming up the embankment. He hadn't seen them, and he was gurgling to himself in a hissing, spitting voice. Sarah had a sudden, visceral sense that something was very wrong with this person. Before she could signal Jareth, the thing looked up and saw her.  
  
"Meats!" it cried, its muzzle split wide in a ghastly grin, and sprang up the slope toward them. "You stay, you foolish man-things, even though the Master orders you away? You become lunch for Sebheorri!"  
  
Jareth shouted and flung a crystal at the thing. It exploded against its twisted, sinuous body and a mesh of silver ropes wrapped themselves around the creature. Gurgling in hideous laughter, the thing shook itself and the ropes dropped away with a sizzling sound. "Meats with magics, even better!" it cried gleefully. "You must struggle for Sebheorri."  
  
Jareth extended his hand, and suddenly it was filled with a silver sword. "Get away, demon-spawn," he said dangerously.  
  
"Or else you tickle me with that poker?" the creature giggled. It flipped its claw almost lazily, and the sword exploded in a flash of fire. Jareth yelped and clutched his burned hand, shouting words of warding. The thing waded through the defenses as if they weren't even there.  
  
This is it, Sarah thought desperately. We're going to die.  
  
The creature reached out its twisted, tortured fingers to grab Jareth's throat. The King raised his arms to the sky and roared a single, terrible word. Flinching, the demon hissed and clawed at his face, but Jareth had the measure of his enemy now. His power flung the thing away from him, picked it up and shook it like a dog, and the Goblin King intoned a long incantation which Sarah could not hear through the fierce wind that whipped around him. He brought his hands together in a gesture of finality, and the creature disappeared.  
  
The wind died, and Sarah found herself looking up at the most powerful mage in the Underground, his face stark and terrible with the potency of his magic, his eyes merciless and cold. Instead of fear, however, she felt her heart reach out to him as never before. Compassion for this lonely man swept over her, and she put a hand to his cheek before she thought better of it. He started at her touch, then seemed to come back to himself. His eyes gleamed at her in their familiar sardonic way, and he laughed a short, ugly laugh.  
  
"If, by some miracle, I should ever see my old tutor again, I will elevate him to a lordship for making me learn my exorcisms. I deemed it such a waste at the time." Jareth turned to look over the embankment at the figures below, which were roiling about faster than ever and beginning to stream in their direction.  
  
"I'm afraid our visitor has drastically reduced our options. The rest of them will be here shortly." Jareth held out his hand, and two crystals appeared at his fingertips. "It is time to choose," he said. "As his mortal army dwindled, Duath obviously turned to darker means. That army below us likely numbers in the millions, all of them demon ilk, and if the Gates are ever opened they will swarm through and raze both our worlds. I am a King. My duty is clear. I will enter the Labyrinth, fight my way to the tower, and destroy the Black Gate by any means possible." Sarah felt herself crumple at his words. He held out one of the spheres to her. "You, however, are just a girl. There may yet be a life for you in Tir-na- nOg. Take this, and it will send you to the other end of this world. It is a powerful magic; it will protect you from this horde and it will build a safe haven, a place where dreams may come true."  
  
Sarah looked at the crystal, then up to his shuttered, guarded gaze. His offer was generous, even noble, but no part of her even considered taking it. "I love my world," she said softly. "I would give anything to protect it, and the people I love. I'll help you in any way I can."  
  
Jareth closed his eyes and dropped the crystal. It vanished before it could hit the ground, and when he opened his eyes it was like the sun breaking through storm clouds after a week of rain. "We must be swift," he said, taking her hand in his. "Time is short. They will find a way to open the Gate with or without their sacrifices. Above all else, that must not happen. The architect seems to have followed the ancient rules when he built this Labyrinth, and therefore it will follow its own rules now that it is complete. We have as good a chance as anybody, I expect."  
  
Sarah looked at his twisted mouth. "That isn't very good, is it?" she guessed.  
  
"Not good at all," he replied. "The irony of this is simply chilling."  
  
The time for subterfuge was clearly past, so Jareth flung a crystal into the air and took them directly to the gates of the Labyrinth. A flick of his fingers caused a wall of flame to spring up around them, and he placed an arrogant hand on the gate. "Open in the name of your King," he ordered. The gates stayed firmly shut. Sarah cringed, but Jareth merely murmured, "That would have been too easy." His tone grew imperious again. "Open for two who wish to test themselves against the Labyrinth!"  
  
Soundlessly, the heavy gates swung open. Sarah's feet had no sooner passed the threshold than the gates swung silently closed, and all noise from the outside suddenly ceased. She shivered and somehow wasn't surprised when she looked behind her and discovered that the entrance was gone.  
  
"Come on, Sarah," Jareth said, pulling her after him as he started off down the passage.  
  
"I hope you know what you're doing," she said from between chattering teeth.  
  
"I do, Sarah. I most certainly do." 


	5. Chapter 5

The entrance to the Labyrinth had been hewn from gray stone in some age long gone by, and its walls were pitted with molds and rooting plants, streaked dark with their moisture. The soft pat-pat of their cautious footsteps fell like pebbles tossed into a still pool, the sound reflecting eerily from the walls. Because the hall was narrow, high, and constructed entirely of stone, the air was very cold and still except for the warmth from their breath and the stir of their passage. Pausing for a moment to wrap his sore hand in an elegant handkerchief (which surely had never dreamed it would ever be put to such vulgar use), Jareth conjured his silver sword again and strapped it awkwardly to his right side.  
  
"It's poor luck, but it can't be helped," he said in a low voice. The silence seemed to discourage breaking it; even those soft words rang like clashing steel. "Fortunately I've always had a decent left-handed lunge. I don't suppose you know how to use a weapon?"  
  
"Since I've gotten here, my one big regret has been passing up Mr. Brugley's fencing class," Sarah said dryly.  
  
He raised an eyebrow, then turned his hand and produced a crystal at his fingertips. "It's never too late to start," he told her, handing her a silver blade about two feet long. "Allow me to summarize two thousand years of fencing technique: hold the blunt end and don't cut yourself."  
  
Sarah folded her arms across her chest. "You know, you might want to rethink this offer. Currently the odds favor my immediately swinging for your head."  
  
Jareth threw back his head and barked a short, harsh laugh. There was little mirth in the sound, but some part of the hollow stillness in the air vanished like smoke on the breeze. Summoning a scabbard to go with the short sword, he held it out to her. "Take it, Sarah. Though your tongue is a fearsome weapon, I believe that cold iron may serve you better for the moment."  
  
Gingerly, Sarah accepted the thing. The pommel fit her hand perfectly and he must have magicked the blade to be unusually light, but she felt extremely uncomfortable holding something created for the sole purpose of hurting someone else. "Well," she muttered, "it's likely to be someone hell-bent on murdering me, so better safe than sorry."  
  
"You needn't bother thanking me," Jareth said haughtily.  
  
"Okay, then I won't," she grinned. "Even though I'd love to stand in this cold, damp alley talking all day, shouldn't we get moving? It's not like they won't figure out where we've gone."  
  
"Admirable spirit, though misinformed as usual," Jareth said mockingly. Sarah squealed and aimed a kick at his leg. Eyes dancing, he stepped easily out of the way. Sarah was ready to land a really satisfying kick on the rough stones behind him, but to her boundless surprise, her foot passed right through the wall. She overbalanced, started to topple, and shot out the hand with the sword in it and caught herself with its point between two cracked slabs.  
  
"Oh look," she said weakly, "it's been useful already."  
  
Jareth leapt past her, sword out, and stuck his head through what seemed to be solid rock. Ducking back, he nodded in satisfaction. "It looks clear. Well done, my dear, well done indeed! First point's to you." He held out his hand like any well-bred gentlemen would do to a lady he was escorting to a royal ball. Sarah pursed her lips and tried to decide if he was making fun of her again, then shrugged.  
  
"Hell with it," she said, and placed her fingertips on his. If this was to be her last run, she might as well enjoy herself a little. "Shall we, my lord?" she asked loftily.  
  
"The Labyrinth awaits," he replied, and led her regally through a barrier that wasn't really there at all. Sarah felt the shiver of magic pass over her as they stepped through the illusion, then looked around to see the true beginning of the Labyrinth.  
  
Passages twisted and turned away from them in every direction, snaking through walls that stuck out at crazy angles all around them. Rising above the mad, helter-skelter maze, Sarah could see a smudge of darkness that might have been the tower at the center of the Labyrinth. She turned to look behind them and saw more passages just like the others. "Hey, it changed!" she cried.  
  
Jareth tossed a cursory glance over his shoulder and dismissed it. "Nonsense. We simply entered the true Labyrinth. The first riddle is usually to find the real entrance. Most people assume that walking through a fancy gate is all that must be done, but assumptions can be very dangerous."  
  
"Well, let's hope the soldiers won't think of kicking the wall," Sarah said.  
  
"It wouldn't matter if they did," Jareth said as his eyes flickered between the options before them. "Our battle is against the Labyrinth now, and any who follow must run their own races. I doubt very much that they will follow us. No, they will go running to the lord of this maze - who, I suspect, is the elder Duath, unless Malocoli has usurped him and rules in his place - and will surely be waiting for us at the center."  
  
"That's very cheerful," Sarah said sourly.  
  
Jareth closed his eyes and took in a deep breath, letting it out slowly as he raised his hands in front of him. Fingers waving slightly, he began moving his arms in little sigmoid curves in front of him. He looked a little like the conductor of an invisible symphony, Sarah thought, or like a mad dowser feeling for water. Still with his eyes closed, Jareth said, "Of course, Malocoli is likely a good two days' travel away at least. If we move quickly, we may beat him yet. We have certain advantages."  
  
"Like what you're doing now?" Sarah asked.  
  
Jareth smiled like a cat that had gotten into the cream and opened his eyes. "Exactly," he purred. "Come, Sarah! The clock is ticking." He strode off down one of the passages.  
  
Trotting to catch up, Sarah pressed, "How exactly do you know which way to go?"  
  
His face was almost jubilant as he replied, "I have a passing familiarity with such things. Power flows through the Labyrinth toward its center, like rivers to the sea. We have but to find the main current, float ourselves along it like so much driftwood, and we are almost certain to find our way to the center."  
  
Sarah caught the qualification. "Almost?" she inquired.  
  
"Nothing is ever certain in the Labyrinth," he said curtly.  
  
That didn't make her feel much better. "So why are we relying on 'almost' when your magic can take us to the center in a heartbeat?" Sarah demanded.  
  
Jareth never broke stride. "Clever, but still ignorant," he chided her.  
  
Sarah flushed. "If you spent half as much time explaining things to me as you do enjoying your superiority, I'd know more than you by now!" she retorted.  
  
"Your vociferous point is well taken," he said, flashing her a wry glance. "Allow me to enlighten you. Entering the Labyrinth is tantamount to entering into a contract of sorts. As long as we abide by certain behavior, the Labyrinth is bound by certain rules. As challengers, we must physically traverse the thing, and you truly can't understand how annoying that is to me. If I tried magically to move us to a point closer to the center, the Labyrinth would be free to intercept us and send us to the nastiest location of its devising. I doubt very much that either of us would enjoy such an outcome."  
  
"You say that like it's alive," Sarah observed.  
  
"That's because it is," Jareth replied.  
  
They didn't talk for the next half hour or so, but Sarah spent the time noticing how right he was, and wondering how she could have missed the fact that the Labyrinth was clearly a living entity. Its corridors thrummed with energy, almost like a heartbeat, and she got the distinct feeling that the walls were growing and changing every moment. Sometimes she even turned her head to see, out of the corner of her eye, a wall growing out to block the way they had come. "Magic is its blood, and the center its heart," she murmured.  
  
"A decent analogy, except for the fact that the magic flows," Jareth said, interrupting her thoughts.  
  
Sarah blinked. "Clearly that's why the analogy is so good," she said.  
  
Jareth laughed. "Are you mad? Blood doesn't flow!"  
  
Sarah was so stunned she almost tripped over her own feet. "What d'you mean, blood doesn't flow? Of course it does! Unless - " She stopped suddenly. "Wait a minute. You look like me on the outside, but that doesn't mean we're the same on the inside. Maybe your blood really doesn't flow!" She thought about that for a minute, then added, "You have a heart, though." She had heard it beating as he held her, weeping, in his arms.  
  
This new mystery intrigued both of them. Jareth ransacked his memory of the old legends of the Underground and after swapping their limited knowledge of anatomy, they concluded that they were most probably quite similar on the inside as well. Sarah discovered, however, that Jareth was completely ignorant of the function of any of his internal parts. He told her in complete earnestness that it had been proved centuries ago that the heart was the seat of intelligence, containing water on the right side and air on the left and thus providing a balance of two of the most important elements for life. The heartbeat, he said, was the element of fire. A suspicion began to grow in Sarah's mind.  
  
"You must have astronomers in the Underground," she said. "They must have ideas about the stars, right?"  
  
"Of course," Jareth said. "The world is the center of the universe, and the sun, moon, and stars occupy various celestial spheres moving in fiendishly complex patterns." As Sarah listened with growing conviction that her theory was right, Jareth gave her a near-textbook explanation of Ptolemaic astronomy. She asked him about math and chemistry and although her own knowledge of those subjects was fairly abysmal, she obviously outpaced Jareth by a hundred miles. The Underground was brim-full of magic, and science had paid the price.  
  
Although Jareth clearly thought that the Uplands was full of madmen, he listened in fascination to her stumbling explanation of the circulatory system. Sarah had hit a wall trying to explain the idea of the heart as a pump ("What's a pump?" he had asked, baffled. "It's for, well, pumping things," she had replied) and was looking at the ground for something to demonstrate the concept when she felt his hand clamp down on her arm in a steel grip. One look at his face made her blood run cold, and she turned stiffly to see what could possibly have given him such a definite pallor.  
  
In front of them, lounging across the path, was a huge woman as big as a house. She filled the passage from wall to wall, and was naked from the waist up, her tangled black hair falling in giant elflocks to cover her breasts and stomach. As Sarah watched, the woman shifted herself to a more comfortable position and revealed the body of an enormous lion where the woman's giant legs should have been. A pair of wings sprouted from the lion's shoulders, the vivid red and blue of the feathers making a startling contrast with the tawny gold of its hide. All told, the creature had eight limbs. One hand lifted lazily to the woman's face as she casually inspected a curved claw. She raised her emerald cats' eyes to regard them momentarily, then returned to her examination of her talon.  
  
"You can go no further, little creatures, unless I permit it," she said in a rich, deep voice.  
  
"Ah," Jareth said. "I wondered when we would meet the inhabitants." Pitching his voice louder, he cried, "I greet you most cordially, your Grace! We seek the center of the Labyrinth. May we have your permission to pass?" Sarah was amazed that he could speak at all. The sight of the giant creature had quite taken her breath away.  
  
The woman flicked her lion's tail in a gesture both leisurely and powerful. "Do you know what I am, little creatures?" she asked.  
  
Jareth gave her a dazzling smile and said, "Of course, my lady! Who has not heard of the might and wisdom of the Sphinx? But the tales do no justice to your great beauty, I see. Perhaps mere words are not enough to capture such splendor!"  
  
He was talking perfect nonsense, but Sarah couldn't help feeling the tiniest bit put out. She had been his sole companion for four days and she'd never seen so much as a hint of the charm that was currently oozing out of him. She told herself firmly to get a grip. It was ridiculous to be jealous of a house-sized Sphinx. Obviously his gallantry only emerged when it saved him from being someone's lunch.  
  
The Sphinx preened herself languidly and laughed a deep, throaty chuckle. "I like you, little man. I'll make you a bargain. Give me that ugly girl and I'll make you my pet."  
  
Sarah shot an enraged glare at Jareth. He turned considerably paler and hastened to say, "Much as I hate to decline your generous offer, I must escort this girl to the center. A matter of honor, you understand."  
  
"Oh yes," the Sphinx said. "You Men care so much for your honor. Then I am sure you will do the honorable thing and pay me a fair price for your passage."  
  
"And what might that be?" Jareth asked cautiously.  
  
"Merely a trifle," the Sphinx sniffed. "My price is the answer to my riddle." Rolling casually onto her haunches, the Sphinx stretched luxuriously and began to speak in a sonorous voice. "What goes on four legs in the morning, two legs in the afternoon, and three legs in the evening?" she intoned.  
  
"That's easy!" Sarah cried, relieved to get off so lightly. "It's a per-"  
  
"Stop!" Jareth shouted.  
  
"-son," Sarah finished.  
  
"Done!" the Sphinx howled. Unsheathing all her claws, she pounced.  
  
Jareth crashed into Sarah and knocked her flying. Dazedly climbing to her knees, Sarah saw him dash towards the Sphinx, silver sword blazing. The Sphinx was roaring like a creature possessed, slashing at Jareth with her huge paws and scoring deep grooves in the stone with every blow. He danced nimbly between her legs, stabbing downwards, and the Sphinx shrieked in pain. As his sword flicked into view again, Sarah saw that it dripped scarlet.  
  
Enraged, the beast retaliated. Her wings began beating furiously, generating a wind that threatened to knock Jareth off his feet. Dust flew into his eyes and mouth despite the warding arm he flung in front of his face. A claw came whistling down and Sarah heard a very human cry.  
  
The sound spurred her to action. Scrambling to her feet, she grabbed the first piece of loose masonry that came to her hand. "Fly hard, you," she ordered it, and flung it at the Sphinx's head with all her strength. Sarah didn't wait to see if she had hit her target, although given the size of that head it would have been hard to miss. As soon as the rock left her hand, she felt for another and loosed that one after its brother. Yelling and stamping, she aimed for the Sphinx's eyes and was gratified to see the monster flinch, then turn her ponderous head in Sarah's direction. The cats' eyes narrowed and a hiss escaped the twisted mouth.  
  
"You, ugly girl, will do just as well," the Sphinx growled.  
  
Sarah drew her little blade and shouted, "Come and get me!" The Sphinx turned her hunting gaze on Sarah and prepared to spring. Sarah looked for Jareth in the dust cloud at the Sphinx's feet and whispered, "Please don't be dead, please don't be dead."  
  
Jareth was not, in fact, dead. As soon as the Sphinx shifted her attention to Sarah, he moved as silently and swiftly as lightening, and the Sphinx's huge cry as his blade sank to the hilt in her chest was like thunder. Before Sarah was able to do more than gasp "You're alive!" he raced up to her, threw her over his shoulder, and sprinted for the far passage.  
  
Before Sarah could blink, they were out of the Sphinx's little courtyard and flying down a long hall. She started to yell at Jareth to put her down, had to stop to cough up a lungful of dust, and decided to pound on his back instead. He paid no attention to her, sprinting around corner after corner until the howls of the Sphinx were long gone. They burst out into a wide, grassy area that looked like it might have been somebody's orchard once. He looked around, seemed to decide it was safe, and dumped her unceremoniously to the ground.  
  
"Fool . . . idiot . . . girl," he wheezed, chest heaving. He turned away from her to pace, too furious for words. Sarah got slowly to her feet. She had to admit that he was right. She had acted stupidly, assuming that all the Sphinx wanted was a verbal answer to the riddle. Instead, by answering she had agreed to the Sphinx's price: a person. She opened her mouth awkwardly to apologize but the words seemed to stick in her throat. Her pride was just about the only thing that had protected her from this man thus far, and she was too afraid to abandon it. Jareth came to an abrupt stop in front of her. Sarah forced herself to meet his furious gaze. She started to gather her will to tell him the truth, but suddenly he seized her by both arms, pulled her to him, and engulfed her in a fierce embrace.  
  
His arms encircled her like a vise, his body shaking from head to toe, his breath coming from him in hoarse sobs. Sarah was squashed against his chest, face pressed against the prickly brocade of his collar, and she found she didn't mind at all. He had trapped her arms along with the rest of her, so instead of wrapping them around him she settled for leaning her body against his. She closed her eyes and thought of wildflowers, then banished the image as not perfect enough.  
  
As suddenly as he had pulled her in, he pushed her roughly back. Shaking her so that her teeth rattled, he yelled, "You fool creature! What the devil possessed you to throw rocks at that beast? You would - you could have been - curse all women for interfering busybodies!"  
  
Part of her thought that she should probably be annoyed with him, but the rest of her couldn't care less. He wouldn't be Jareth if he didn't think he could take on the world all by himself. "She scratched you," Sarah said, raising her hand to touch the line of blood at his neck.  
  
"Barely nicked me," he scoffed. "She was as slow as molasses. Quick enough to take me by surprise when she turned about, though. I would never have given you that sword if I'd known it would make you so confounded foolhardy!"  
  
"Jareth," Sarah said firmly, "shut up." Surprised, he closed his mouth. She continued, "I'm sorry I got us into that mess in the first place. You were right - assumptions are dangerous, and I took it for granted that all I had to do was answer the riddle. I'm sorry."  
  
He stared at her for a long moment, his blue eye frigid and his gold eye flaming. Her own deep brown eyes stared back, daring him to stay angry with her. He was the first to break eye contact, storming off to kick one of the trees that shaded the grassy lawn. Sarah could hear him muttering oaths, and she found herself smiling at his inventive vocabulary. Her eyes were drawn to the branches above his head, and she noticed that the trees had small fruit hanging heavily from its branches. "What kind of trees are these?" she asked.  
  
Jareth raised his head and growled, "Of all the trivial nonsense!" He cast a glance into the branches above his head and cocked his head in surprise. "Peach trees," he told her.  
  
"It's been a long four days since I've had fresh fruit," Sarah said.  
  
Jareth peered suspiciously up at the tree, then gingerly reached out and plucked two peaches. He stood there, hand outstretched, as if waiting for something to happen. When nothing did, he sniffed the fruit, turned it over in his hand, and brought it to her. "I don't feel a spell on it," he said in a conciliatory tone.  
  
Sarah smiled and said, "Good. I'm starved." She would let the peach be a peace offering between them.  
  
Jareth took out a small dagger and cut one of the peaches in half, sniffed the inside, and took a small bite. He waited a few more moments, but his face didn't turn purple or anything sinister like that. Handing her the other half, he said, "It seems to be safe."  
  
Sarah said, "I'm sure it is," and took a large bite. It was the sweetest, juiciest peach she had ever tasted. Some of the nectar ran down her chin, and she laughed as she licked it up.  
  
Jareth's voice said, "Sarah." He sounded strange. She turned her head gaily to ask him what was the matter, and saw him collapse to his knees. The remains of the peach rolled from his hand onto the green grass, its core putrid and rotten. Her body began to go numb, and she watched in horror as the Goblin King keeled over to lie prone in the green grass.  
  
"Jareth," she whispered, and then her eyes glazed over and she felt herself spinning, spinning, spinning into blackness. 


	6. Chapter 6

She spun through fog and shadow, her feet tangled in clouds and her hair dripping with starlight. Her fingers wove themselves through velvet night, catching the dark and pulling it to her face in long, chilly strands. A wild laugh escaped her mouth and whipped away on the wind. Before her, a yellow light sprang into being. It captured her eyes immediately, filling her vision with heat and flame. The fog suddenly seemed clammy and grasping, tugging at her ankles like a vicious dog. She kicked it off and reached for the light, spinning into its bright warmth to set down with a gentle bump.  
  
She stepped out of the dark into a hall full of people. A sea of heads turned in her direction, a legion of eyes glittering behind fanciful, bizarre masks that transformed their owners into creatures out of a dream. A thousand candles burned in a dozen chandeliers, their flames multiplied ten times over by the great mirrors that lined the walls from floor to ceiling. The lyric strains of an orchestra filled the air with music. She noticed the whispers escaping from behind painted fans, saw the jealous looks from vicious female eyes, and heard a soft sigh rising from masculine throats. A question rippled through the crowd: "Who is she? Who is she?" Raising the silk of her gown ever so slightly (and perfectly aware of the male stares locked on her dainty slipper), she stepped into the center of the room and raised an elegant hand. She was immediately surrounded by a dozen masked men, their abandoned ladies pouting at their backs. A gloved hand seized her fingers and she was whirled away into the dance.  
  
Her partner was tall, willowy as a reed, with a hawk's fierce plumage hiding his face. He danced divinely, flashing his feathers ostentatiously before her, but she quickly became bored with him. Pushing him away, she found herself swept into the arms of another man who flexed his broad shoulders for her amusement. He utterly failed to arouse her interest. She danced with short men, tall men, warriors and poets, teasing them to the brink of madness with her caress, her smile, and her inevitable dismissal. She grew impatient and began to search, pushing through the throng with angry strokes. Supplications rose on all sides but she ignored them, intent on her purpose.  
  
The crowd parted before her, and there he was. Like herself, he wore no mask. Their eyes met and all other thought vanished from her mind. He shrugged off the clinging hands of the women who surrounded him, ignoring their complaints, and wordlessly offered her his arm. She laid her fingers on his sleeve and he brought her to the dance floor.  
  
She slipped her left hand along the silk of his jacket to rest gently on the muscle of his upper arm, her eyes never leaving the blue and gold of his gaze. His right hand settled in the hollow between her shoulder blades and pulled her close, holding her like a bird that might take flight if his grip proved too rough. She was barely conscious of the music, her body thrilling instead to the rhythm of his heartbeat. He danced her gracefully down the hall, his eyes drinking her in at every moment, oblivious of the whispering crowd. They spun together in a halo of candlelight, his lips moving soundlessly, promising to fulfill her every dream. She moved her fingers up his neck to rest softly against his cheek. In response, he buried his hand in her dark curls, cupping the back of her head and tilting her face up to his, and she quivered with anticipation as she saw the intent in his eyes. As gently as a summer breeze he bent his head to hers, and she closed her eyes and felt his lips against her mouth. His first touch was brief, the brush of a butterfly's wings, but no sooner had he pulled away than he was dipping his head to her again. His mouth was warm and strong, drawing her gently into a deeper embrace, and she trembled at the fierceness of her response to his touch. She pulled him to her, parting her lips in temptation. A low moan rose from his throat as he bore down on her mouth, and she tasted -  
  
Peaches. Sarah's eyes flew open and she pushed away from his kiss, staring up at his face in shock. His eyes were clouded with desire - and with something much darker. Recollection beat at the deep doors of her mind, and all at once she was flooded with a tide of memories. "Jareth!" she gasped.  
  
Befuddled, he asked, "Who is Jareth?"  
  
She placed both hands against his face and murmured, "You are, dearest. We can't stay here, we have important work to do. You have to help me."  
  
The fog behind his eyes cleared a little. "What must I do?" he asked uncertainly.  
  
"Remember the Labyrinth, Jareth! How can you defeat this spell?"  
  
He put a hand to his forehead, then shook himself like someone coming out of a long sleep. "A spell?" he asked, but his voice sounded more alert. Casting a glance around the room, he said, "It's built around mirrors. Hold on to me; there's no telling where we'll be once I shatter it."  
  
He raised a hand and shouted a single word, and suddenly was holding a ball of icy light. Sarah wrapped her arms around his waist and closed her eyes as he leaned back and threw the shining globe at the closest mirror with all his strength.  
  
The mirror broke with a sound like the smashing of a hundred crystal goblets, and the world around them fractured with it. Shards of screaming people flew by them and Sarah buried her face in Jareth's jacket as slivers of the hall and its masqueraders zipped past and disappeared into darkness. They hung in black limbo for a moment and then Sarah felt the sickening lurch of falling, immediately followed by the painful impact of landing. Still muddled from the spell of the peach, Jareth staggered to his knees and knocked Sarah flat on her back.  
  
Neither of them wanted to do anything other than lie quietly for a few minutes and try to come to grips with what had happened. Although they were still engulfed in pitch darkness, the stones pressing into Sarah's back were comfortingly real and their sharp tips gave her something concrete to focus on. The last wisps of fog slowly seeped out of her brain, and the desire to curl into a ball and cry became almost overwhelming. What a terrible place this was! You couldn't trust anything, and as far as Sarah could tell they might be anywhere in the Labyrinth now. From the quality of the air around them, she guessed that they were in a large space, possibly a cave, and something about the dead silence made her sure that they were the only living creatures there. After a little while, Sarah cleared her throat and said, "I guess those peaches had a spell on them after all."  
  
There was a pause, and then Jareth said, "Yes." His voice was flat and expressionless.  
  
Sarah waited for more, but Jareth wasn't forthcoming. A long stretch of silence elapsed, which she finally broke by saying, "So we were under a spell when we -"  
  
"Yes," Jareth interrupted harshly.  
  
Sarah winced at the anger in his tone. The memory of their dance burned like fire in her mind and she fought like a lioness to keep her tears at bay. She knew she could never be that spun-sugar, fairy-tale princess in real life - she, the belle of the ball? Not likely, but he didn't have to sound so disgusted about it! There was no way she would have kissed him either if they hadn't eaten that peach! Of course, that was only because she was too cowardly to go through with it under normal circumstances, but she shrugged that fact off as a technicality. She struggled against the truth for as long as she could, then grimaced in defeat. Who was she kidding? His kiss had been the most wonderful thing she had ever felt, and she had to admit that she'd been thinking about it in the back of her mind for days. His rejection sliced more deeply than she ever would have believed. What she really needed was a good sobbing session and possibly a mountain of chocolate to apply some first aid to this emotional wound, but there just wasn't time. Her poor heart would simply have to bleed itself dry.  
  
The best thing to do was to ignore it, pretend it never happened. They could still accomplish what they had set out to do and destroy the Black Gate. Sarah had found the thought of being trapped in Tir-na-nOg forever to be bearable only because the Goblin King would be her fellow exile, but that comfort had now turned to ashes. She thought of the bleak, eternal twilight and the gaunt, hungry faces of the Land of Eternal Youth and shuddered. Would she end up like that, with a twenty-year-old body and hundred-year-old eyes?  
  
Her thoughts turned to her home, to friends and family. Poor Pierce, how worried he must be! And her father was probably beating himself up night and day trying to find her. Sarah thought of Sandy with her hearty laugh, Becky with her constant hypochondria, and Karen with her antiquated propriety. She wondered if Merlin would eat all of Dad's shoes again to show he missed her. Dogs were funny that way.  
  
To keep them safe, she would destroy her only way home. They were worth it. Hope of seeing them again would keep her alive through the lonely years ahead, and who knew? The universe was full of possibilities, and maybe she would get to feel the sun on her face again after all. One thing was certain: their time was running out. "We should get going," Sarah said.  
  
"Yes, we have dawdled long enough," Jareth said in clipped tones, and a light blossomed in the darkness. He raised his arm and the sphere in his hand glowed brighter, casting white light all around them. At first glance, Sarah thought they were indeed in a small cave, but as she looked closer she saw that the walls and roof were made of hewn stone. "Interesting," Jareth said, surprise clearly showing on his face. "What do you make of it, Sarah?"  
  
She pushed her bruised ego to the side and forced herself to be civil. "A dungeon?" she guessed. "It doesn't look like anyone has been here for ages."  
  
"Likely no one has," he agreed. "The oubliette is something of a last defense and very few ever come so far. Think, Sarah: where does one usually find a dungeon?"  
  
"Under a castle?" she hazarded.  
  
"Exactly!" he said, snapping his fingers. "We were completely in the Labyrinth's power. It could have taken us anywhere, yet here we are - directly underneath the tower, at the center of the maze. It has practically solved itself for us. Why would it do such a thing?" When he received no immediate answer, Jareth looked at her and raised an expectant eyebrow.  
  
Sarah took refuge in irritation. "I haven't a clue," she snapped. "Let's just be grateful about it and try to find a way out. I assume there is one?"  
  
"Usually," he confirmed.  
  
After a cursory search, it became obvious that the oubliette ended in a blind cul-de-sac, leaving them with only one way to go. They set off down the wide passageway, neither talking nor looking at one another. The tension between them was ugly and palpable, but Sarah couldn't think of any way to ease it that didn't involve personal mortification. She kept silent.  
  
They had not been walking for long when they began to hear a strange, muted rumble that reminded Sarah of the sound of a subway train right before it pulls into a station. It grew steadily louder the further they went until it became practically a roar, and Sarah was starting to wonder whether the tower might not sit on top of some weird underground factory when they came around a sharp bend and saw the source of the noise.  
  
A stream of water as thick as a man's waist poured torrentially through a crack in the wall high overhead, plummeting down hundreds of feet to disappear into blackness below. A narrow chasm divided the path in front of them, worn away by centuries of pounding water, and Sarah peeked over the edge to see the white, frothy rapids of a subterranean river. It was a very long way down. Just beyond the far side of the abyss, a rusty iron door was set into the black, pitted stone of old foundations. Sarah was sure that the door led to the heart of the Labyrinth, into the belly of the black tower. Spanning the cleft was a narrow wooden bridge.  
  
They approached the bridge cautiously and Jareth bent his head to yell in her ear, "It's probably nearly rotted away from the spray."  
  
Straining to be heard above the thunder of the waterfall, Sarah shouted, "There's no light down here. Doesn't mold need light? Maybe it's been magicked."  
  
Jareth replied, "There's only one way to find out." He put a tentative foot on the first slat, pressing down with his toes. The bridge swayed slightly but seemed to hold firm. Slowly, he transferred his whole weight onto that foot, lips compressed in concentration, then paused as something caught his eye. He bent to examine the black wood, then straightened and yelled, "There's something written here."  
  
"What's it say?" Sarah bellowed.  
  
He regarded the inscription for a moment. "'That which is hidden shall be revealed, ere you reach the castle.' It doesn't seem very sinister, at least!"  
  
"We've gotten in trouble before because we assumed things were safe," Sarah reminded him.  
  
Jareth turned to look at the little door on the far side of the chasm. "Care to try our luck one more time?" he shouted.  
  
Sarah followed his gaze and realized he was right. They were too close not to gamble a little. "Do you have anything particularly nasty that might have to be revealed?" she asked him. He shook his head and held out his hand. Biting her lip, Sarah placed her fingers in his (probably for the last time, her brain whispered) and wondered if the bridge would suddenly start shouting that she was in love with the Goblin King, since that was just about the only hidden thing she could think of. Oh well, at least it wouldn't kill her. Jareth gave her hand a reassuring squeeze and they started across.  
  
It was relatively easy, actually, provided you didn't look down. The span couldn't have been more than forty feet and the bridge felt remarkably steady. In no time at all, Jareth reached the opposite side and Sarah relaxed and breathed a sigh of relief. Whoever had built the bridge had placed its far end bizarrely low, so that you had to heave yourself over a lip that came up to the middle of Sarah's chest. Jareth let go of her hand and pulled himself up easily, and she stepped forward to follow him.  
  
It all happened so quickly, yet each individual event seemed to stretch out for an eternity. First she heard a snap, like brittle candy, and turned her head as if in slow motion to see the tethers on the far side give way. She saw the bridge fall away beneath her and felt herself become weightless. She heard Jareth's howl and the gentle slap of her hand as it slid along the smooth boards, then felt her fingers slide into a crack, catch, and hold. The sudden wrench of arresting her fall threatened to rip her shoulder from its socket and she groaned in pain, then opened her eyes to see the whiteness of rushing water far below her dangling feet. She gathered herself, then flung her free hand up to scrabble against the wooden boards until she found purchase between two planks. Hanging suspended over the maelstrom, Sarah raised her head to meet the agonized gaze of the Goblin King.  
  
She had fallen nearly thirty feet, much too far for Jareth to reach her. "Don't move!" he called down to her, then fashioned a thick silver rope with a turn of his hand and started to lower it down. As soon as it passed below the point where the bridge was still attached to the cliff, however, it suddenly frayed into nothing. Sarah could see his mouth working furiously, and despite her situation she had to smile at the creative vulgarity she imagined pouring from his lips. He tried a ladder, a staircase, even a long pole, but everything he conjured dissolved instantly once it passed the end of the bridge. Sarah was in agony by this time. Her left shoulder felt like it was on fire, and it was all she could do not to press her face against the boards and sob.  
  
Jareth seemed to be thinking, then held up a finger and disappeared. While he was gone, she tried to see if she could climb any higher, but the bridge slats were worn smooth with age. Except for the lucky chink she had clutched in desperation, the joins were too tight to get a handhold. At length Jareth reappeared, dragging something behind him. As she watched in horror, he swung himself over the ledge and began to lower himself down a silver rope.  
  
"No way!" Sarah yelled with all the strength she could muster. "Don't you dare! You've got to stop Duath, remember?"  
  
Jareth paid no attention to her and continued climbing downward. His waist was already past the point where his magical ropes had disappeared, and neither leg had dissolved. Sarah held her breath, mentally crossing her fingers for all she was worth. Maybe it would work! Just then, however, he reached out to grab a part of the rope below the end of the bridge. As soon as his hand touched it, the silver cable disintegrated and he was left dangling one-handed above her. Grunting with effort, he pulled himself back up and hovered over the edge, clearly at a loss.  
  
Sarah yelled up to him, "Be rational, Jareth! The Gate is all that matters. Go on, get out of here!"  
  
He called back, "What about you?"  
  
She put on her best brave face. "I'll be fine," she told him, projecting all the false confidence she could muster. In fact, she could feel her fingers beginning to slip already. "I've got a nice good hold here. I'll be here when you get back."  
  
Jareth eyed her suspiciously for a moment, then declared, "If you think I'm leaving you here, you are tremendously mistaken."  
  
Sarah felt the wood grow slick beneath her cold fingers and she slipped a fraction of an inch. It was enough to tell her what was coming. "Don't be stupid," she shot up at him, "I could hang here all day if I had to. Go get Duath!"  
  
"I'm not leaving you," he said stubbornly.  
  
Her grip was becoming more tenuous by the second. "What about the Underground, and the Uplands?" she shouted desperately. "You can't let Duath invade them just because of me. I'm not that important!" Suddenly she slipped, letting out a yell and falling nearly a foot before she caught the overlarge edge of the last board.  
  
"No!" Jareth howled, flinging himself recklessly forward. There was nothing he could do, however. There was no way to reach her. "I won't watch you die," he sobbed. "There must be a way to help you!"  
  
Sarah felt more afraid than she ever had in her life, but he couldn't afford to waste any more time. "If you don't want to watch me die, then you better go now," she called up to him. He flinched, his wild eyes full of madness. She drank in the sight of his face, memorizing each feature. At least she would have this last pleasure to take with her when she fell.  
  
He lay down at the lip of the chasm. "You can't fall," he said almost reasonably, "or I'll throw myself in after you."  
  
"What? Have you gone totally insane?" Sarah felt hot rage boil up inside her. Why wouldn't he leave? Why did he have to stand there making stupid threats like that?  
  
Almost as if in answer, Jareth said in a broken voice, "I love you too much to live without you."  
  
His words were almost lost in the roar of the falls. She caught their echo and for a moment she didn't understand them, but as they percolated to her brain she went numb with shock. He loved her? Looking up, she saw a strange light blazing in his eyes that made her stomach contract. She knew that emotion; she'd felt it often enough herself recently. A sense of peace washed over her. She had been wrong about his feelings for her, dead wrong. The depth of his caring was written on his face as plain as day, but she had only seen it now that it was too late. "That which was hidden is now revealed," Sarah whispered.  
  
Her vision began to swim. Blood thundered in her ears, her breath came in labored gasps, and shadows crept in around the corners of her eyes. Sarah recognized the signs and groaned in despair. If she fainted now, it was all over. How fitting that the illness she had tried so hard to overcome should get her in the end. "Oh god, please no," she prayed, but she had no strength to fight back. Black fog rolled across her eyes and her fingers slipped from the plank.  
  
It was somehow different this time. She didn't see any visions or hear strange voices; rather, it was like watching a dream through a magnifying glass from far away. She saw Jareth move as if to make good on his threat and muttered "Oh no you don't. You stay there." Just like the dreams when you can tell the characters what to do, his figure immediately froze. Looking down, she saw the river rushing up to meet her. Obviously that wouldn't do. Extending a hand, she stirred up a column of water and raised it to intercept her, gently stopping her fall. "Up we go," she ordered, and her pillar of water obediently swelled beneath her and bore her to the top of the chasm. "Just set me down here, thanks," she requested, and the stream broke obligingly over Jareth's head, drenching him from head to foot and depositing her in his arms. "You idiot, you were really going to jump, weren't you?" Sarah said, and fainted dead away.  
  
The first thing she noticed when consciousness returned was that the surface on which she rested was vibrating. She felt warm and comfortable, and the rosy glow of candlelight tugged gently at her eyelids. Upon opening them, she saw that she was in a dusty brick-walled cellar, surrounded by barrels and bottles and long strings of garlic. Jareth's arms were around her and he was rocking her gently back and forth, humming a strange, soothing song. From its gentle rhythm and simple melody, Sarah guessed it to be a lullaby. "This is much nicer than you telling me how foolish I am all the time," she mumbled into his jacket.  
  
His rocking stilled and he laughed, low and sweet, tightening his arms about her. "My dear Sarah, I only do that when I'm angry with you. After the spectacular feat you just accomplished, I swear I shall never be angry again."  
  
"Don't make promises you can't keep," she said, tapping a lazy finger against the silver buttons on his coat. "I had the weirdest dream just now. I think I fainted again, right?" Her memories weren't exactly adding up. Shouldn't she be at the bottom of a river?  
  
"Ah," Jareth said, his chest rumbling delightfully under her cheek. "Yes, you did faint, and I'm very glad you did."  
  
"That doesn't make any sense," Sarah complained. "Why would anyone be glad about that?"  
  
"I have a theory. Would you like to hear it?" She nodded into his jacket and he explained, "When I first laid eyes on you, I thought you had one of the strangest auras I had ever seen. It was literally bursting with strength, but was completely detached from the rest of you. The first time you fainted, just before we escaped from Heldenholm, I was prepared to go down fighting, but there was no need because a bolt of magic came out of nowhere and destroyed half the town. I immediately looked for a mage who might wield such power, but I only saw you, crumpled in the road and quite unconscious. I was suspicious, but you seemed to accept my explanation of the townsfolk's rebellion so naturally that I began to doubt what I had seen. Just now, however, I saw you pull yourself from that chasm with as much invention as the greatest mages in the Underground - though with slightly less finesse, I must admit. You soaked me through, my dear."  
  
"Hey," Sarah said indignantly, "you weren't the one dangling over the cliffs of insanity there. But I don't have any magic, I can't possibly have done those things. You must have done them yourself without realizing it."  
  
His arms tightened convulsively around her. "Believe me, I was trying every spell I know but they all came flying back in my face. I . . . I thought you were dead, and suddenly I was hit with the hardest 'stay put' I have ever received in my life, and that's saying something! Then you rose up before me like a goddess from the waters and dumped the whole lot right on top of my head - ow!" Grinning, he rubbed his arm where Sarah had punched him. Sobering, he turned her to face him. "Think, Sarah: what happens if a man with potential to be the greatest musician in the world never sees a musical instrument, never hears a single song? He dreams of music, but from the time he is a very small child everyone around him tells him that no such thing exists. He grows up, he learns a great many things, and at every step of the way he learns that there is no music, that music is not real. Do you think if he happened to come across a lyre in the woods that it would ever occur to him to pick it up and play it? In your world, magic is dismissed as something imaginary. At every moment in your life, you have been told that there is no such thing. Sarah, you believed so strongly that you could not do magic that your talent was utterly repressed. In those few moments when your safety absolutely required it, your magic resorted to rendering you unconscious in order to free itself from your firm conviction that it did not exist!"  
  
Sarah stared at him. "I can do magic?" she asked, dazed.  
  
"Not only can you do magic, you're one of the best mages I have ever seen," he told her earnestly. Cupping her face in his hands, he whispered, "My beautiful, otherworldly girl, you amaze me at every turn."  
  
"Wait a minute," she said. "We need to test this. Teach me a spell."  
  
Jareth was taken aback by this. "Well. . . try this. It's to summon a light, and it's quite elementary. Hold your hand like so." He positioned his hand in front of her face, palm up, and she copied him dutifully. "Now think of light. Not fire, or you'll burn yourself, but light - bright, white light - and command it to come to you."  
  
Sarah stared at her palm and commanded light to appear. Nothing happened. "How can I be a mage if I can't do something simple like that?" she asked miserably.  
  
"Belief, Sarah, your belief is the key! Magic does exist." He took her hand in his. "Magic does exist, and you are a mage."  
  
"Magic does exist," Sarah whispered. She knew it was true, she had seen far too much empirical evidence over the past few days to harbor any doubts, but it was her own abilities she was not too sure about. Casting her mind back, though, she could see a clear pattern in her fainting fits now that she knew what to look for. She had always been in trouble, or someone near her had been in trouble, and things had generally sorted themselves out before she regained consciousness. "I am a mage," she breathed, trying to make herself believe it, and commanded her palm to fill with light. A silvery radiance sprang into being above her hand, bathing her face with brilliance. "Oh wow," she said. "Am I doing this?"  
  
"Yes!" Jareth cried triumphantly. Jumping up, he spun her off her feet into a fierce embrace, murmuring into her ear, "My little mage, my little mage."  
  
"Hey," Sarah said shyly, "I feel pretty great. I mean, it's like a huge missing piece has suddenly been fit back into my life."  
  
He gave her a searching, slightly unfocused look and nodded. "Your aura looks healthier than I've ever seen it," he told her. "It's come back to the rest of you."  
  
"Will you teach me?" she demanded. "How to see auras and make silver swords and things?"  
  
"All kinds of things," he promised. A shadow fell across his eyes and he said hesitantly, "Sarah. . . "  
  
"I know," she said, laying a gentle finger across his lips. "All this can come later. Right now we have to do something about Duath." He nodded, a stricken look on his face. "Hey, it will be okay," she said softly. "After all, I'm still a total novice here. I might blow him up without even knowing what I'm doing."  
  
Jareth laid a trembling hand against her dark hair. "To have waited so long, finally to have found you, and now to risk losing you. . . I do not know if I can bear it."  
  
"You can't face him alone, so don't even think it!" she warned him.  
  
His eyes were extraordinarily gentle as he held out his hand. "Shall we, my lady?" he offered.  
  
"Of course, my lord," she replied, placing her fingers on his. Trembling only a very little bit, Jareth led her up the stairs toward the tower, and Duath. 


	7. Chapter 7

The castle was ancient, raised by sorcery from the depths of the earth in some long-forgotten age, and Sarah felt the vast weight of its history bearing down on her as they climbed upward. Jareth's movements were far too elegant to be accurately described as "sneaking" per se, but he was definitely being very careful about how he placed his feet. Sarah slid her fingers across the cold stones as they progressed, shivering as she imagined the guttural echo of nameless voices that had once filled the keep, now vanished even from legend. The passageway was steeped in a strange sadness, and she wondered what this place might have been like in a happier time - or if there had ever been happier times. It could never have had a cheerful atmosphere, given its looming bulk and its persistent chill, but maybe honor and valor had found a home here once. Sarah felt a poignant pang of regret that its archaic nobility had been tarnished with something much fouler - namely that repugnant little creep Duath.  
  
They climbed the round stair until Sarah thought her head would twist itself off, and she realized that either the oubliette had been buried a long ways underground or they had climbed up some of the tower proper. They finally arrived at a wooden door, locked and bound in black iron. Jareth set his ear against the wood and listened for a long moment, then whispered, "I hear nothing. We may be walking directly into a trap."  
  
"But any sane person would be spending his time getting as far away from Duath as possible," Sarah argued, more to convince herself than him. "The last thing he's going to expect is a direct attack on the home fort. This premise works for lots of the heroes in my favorite books."  
  
The left corner of Jareth's mouth twitched. "These were biographical accounts?" he asked.  
  
"Fiction is an expression of the greater truths in life," Sarah snapped.  
  
"How true," Jareth murmured, and set his finger against the lock. There was a spark, the smell of singed wood, and Jareth smothered a yelp as he snatched his hand back. Concerned, Sarah started to reach for the injured member, but he conjured a crystal and broke it over his finger before she got to it and the angry redness quickly disappeared. Sarah filed that away under the growing list of things for which magic was truly handy.  
  
Spells clearly weren't universal solutions, however. Jareth kicked the door and growled, "Orieth, probably made by some long-dead wizard to foil surreptitious invaders. The door is practically covered in the stuff, and I wouldn't be surprised if it ran through the walls as well."  
  
Sarah squeezed up next to him in the narrow hall and peered at the lock. It looked old and solid and it gave her an idea. "Can you make me a thin metal rod, about four inches long, with a half-inch bend at the end of it?" Jareth gave her that all-too-familiar look which implied that he wasn't openly questioning her sanity because he was too much the gentleman, but complied with a flick of his wrist. It turned out that Underground inches were quite a bit longer than the ones Sarah was used to, but after a few tries they got something that looked right. She stuck the rod into the lock and felt gently for pins, then smiled triumphantly. She had been right - the lock was old and simple. "Fantastic," she grinned. "Now I need a nail file."  
  
That concept took a little longer, but eventually she got a flat iron stick and stuck it into the lock next to the pick. A little torque, a little wiggling, a little scrubbing back and forth and the lock turned. "Presto!" Sarah said. "Who knew that breaking into dorm rooms would be such a useful skill?" She was flushed with satisfaction at being able to show off in front of Jareth, and recklessly pushed the door open with a grand flourish.  
  
He responded by throwing himself on top of her and bearing them both to the floor. Sarah blinked up into darkness and whispered, "Ah. Not so smart, was that?"  
  
Jareth put a hand over her mouth and listened hard for at least a minute, turning his head slowly from one side to the other. Sarah had just decided that her need for air superceded caution and was about to poke him in the ribs when he abruptly lifted himself off her and hauled her to her feet. Putting his lips next to her ear, he snarled, "You are the most brilliant and most idiotic person I have ever met. I fear I am doomed to a life of constantly fearing for your bodily safety."  
  
Sarah's stomach fluttered. Did he say "life?" As in spending his life worrying about her? As in having her with him, so that he should be in a position to worry about her? Firmly ordering herself to get a grip, she determinedly squelched the internal butterflies. She was probably making a mountain out of a molehill anyway; people used that sort of phrase every day without thinking about it.  
  
Now that her eyes had had time to adjust, Sarah saw that the blackness was by no means complete. Dim, gloaming light filtered through wooden shutters drawn across windows high up in the wall. Shapes began to distinguish themselves, and Sarah realized that the low tables and massive hearths could only belong in a kitchen. Of course - where else would the stairs from the storeroom come out? There was also a faint metallic ringing that she heard at irregular intervals, but couldn't place.  
  
Jareth moved to the broad door set in the far wall and whispered three words: "Fighting. Be cautious."  
  
He pushed the door open a crack, listened, then slipped through the narrow opening, motioning to Sarah to follow him. As soon as she was through the door, the metallic ringing became much louder. It sounded like a host of badly tuned bells, and Sarah felt sick as she realized that people were probably dying somewhere in the keep at that very moment.  
  
They began moving toward the sound of fighting, proceeding slowly at first, but gradually with less and less caution. A feeling of urgency blossomed in Sarah's breast and her footsteps quickened unconsciously. The metallic ringing of battle became a driving beat, the chime of a hundred voices crying, "Hurry! Hurry!" When they finally found the source of the noise, they were practically running. In fact, Sarah nearly flew out right into the middle of the hall and was only restrained by Jareth's iron grip. He dragged her back from the entrance into the shadow of an adjacent alcove, pressing a finger against his lips, and they looked out onto the aftermath of war.  
  
The hall was long and low with thick wooden beams arching overhead and a raised platform at the far end. In the middle of the hall, the architect had used bracing of black, flint-flecked stone instead of wood, and the dark material circled the hall in a great arch. Even the marble underneath that arch was black, except for where it was smeared with scarlet. A dark throne was placed on the dais, and in the throne slumped the motionless form of a white-haired man. Sarah couldn't tell if he was alive or dead, but the floor of the hall was strewn with at least a dozen bodies of men whose deaths were not at all ambiguous. She stared in horror at the blood splashed across the walls and pooled on the floor, unaware that her face had turned as white as a sheet and that her nails were leaving bruising marks on Jareth's hands. In the center of the hall, the two remaining combatants hacked wildly at each other with broad, bright swords that shone red. From the gold bird of prey embroidered on his surcoat, Sarah identified one of the last two fighters as Duath.  
  
She hoped with all her heart that his assailant would chop Duath's head off, but the other man seemed to be having a rough time of it. He was already grievously wounded, scarlet rivulets running down his right side from beneath his arm, and even Sarah could tell that he wouldn't last long. As they watched, Duath raised his arm and moved in for a mighty stroke. The other man blocked desperately, and above the ringing blow shouted, "My lord! You must reconsider!"  
  
Duath just snarled and came at him again. The poor fellow retreated, stumbling over the bodies of his companions as he yelled, "We came here with swords sheathed to reason with you, my lord! We swore oath and remained faithful to the end. Can you not see that what you do is madness, utter madness?" He came to the wall at the far side of the hall and stopped. There was nowhere else for him to go.  
  
It happened too fast for Sarah to follow. Duath closed in amidst a flurry of blows, and suddenly the other man fell lifeless to the floor, Duath's sword buried in his neck. The warlord of Tir-na-nOg pulled off his helmet, his hair falling in a black river down his back, and causally spat on the body. Turning toward the dais, he strolled arrogantly through the carnage, calling, "You see, Father? There is no one to help you."  
  
The white-haired figure on the dark throne raised its head to reveal a pale, lined face. Although the rest of the man's body slouched down in the throne, the very picture of defeat, there was something defiant in the cast of his head. When he spoke, the voice was not the reedy piping of an old man, but the rich baritone of a general. "Do not call me 'Father,' Malocoli, for I have disowned you from my House."  
  
"I'm wounded, Father," Duath said, placing a mailed fist on his breast. "I shall be the instrument of restoring our House to greatness! Not so long ago you still had faith in me. Will you not ride with me, as you once did?"  
  
The old man said sadly, "I never rode with you but to restrain you, boy. Once, the weight of my fist was enough to keep you in check - but now it falls more lightly, and you have passed beyond my reach. I helped you when I believed your purpose to be simply the reopening of the Winter Gate, but now you tread a condemned road. Mind well your current purpose: would leave such a world to your children?"  
  
Duath threw back his head and laughed, a harsh and ugly sound that ricocheted from the stones and fell like knives on Sarah's ears. "My children!" he shouted. "You live to see the last of our House, Draeda, for I shall have no children. The last of our House, yes, but not the end, for I will live forever and rule all the world!"  
  
"Then Yavvah, once your dearest friend, spoke true. You are utterly mad," Draeda Duath said.  
  
"I care not for your ramblings," Duath sneered dismissively. "The signs are right, the worlds aligned: it is time. Goodbye, Father." Raising his voice, he cried a few words in a very weird, very ugly, very wrong-sounding language. A handful of the nasty creatures that now populated Duath's army bounded into the room, chittering gleefully. They swarmed around the throne, pawing and groping at the old man, and Sarah realized that he was tied up. Duath directed the creatures to cut the bonds that held his father to the throne, then had them drag the old man down the hall toward the alcove where Jareth and Sarah crouched in horror.  
  
Just before the bracing of black stone in the center of the hall, Draeda cried, "The Mages of each realm will know of your plan. The very earth shudders in repugnance at your doings, and even this Labyrinth of yours works to stop you!"  
  
Duath motioned to his soldiers to keep hauling. "A touching final appeal," he scoffed.  
  
The twisted creatures dragged Draeda to a spot on the floor less than twenty-five feet from where Sarah and Jareth hid. Duath then made his servants clear away the bodies from a circular area on the floor. Sarah felt like the demon cronies were practically on top of them, and at any moment one of them was bound to look up or drag his gruesome burden into their little alcove. Although none of them approached, a few did cast glances her way. When that happened, a film of darkness seemed to collect in front of her eyes, and when it passed the creatures had moved on and were continuing about their business. Sarah didn't know if it was Jareth, the Labyrinth, or even she herself doing it unconsciously, but she issued a silent prayer of thanks to whoever it was.  
  
As the floor was cleared, a thin pattern of green inlay in the marble was uncovered. It must have been thousands of years old because it was worn down almost to nothing by the tread of countless feet, and in some spots was missing altogether. It seemed to be a depiction of water or trees or some waving green thing. When Draeda saw it, he raised his eyes to his son and laughed. It was a dead, hopeless sound. "You fool," he said dully. "This pattern lost its power ages ago. The darkest Gate is conjured from madness and blood, not a drawing on a floor, and the price of its opening is terrible."  
  
Beside her, Jareth froze. "By all the powers on earth," he whispered. "Surely not. . . "  
  
For a moment Jareth hesitated, caught in his own disbelief. That brief delay came at an unfortunate and critical time. Before Jareth started moving to blast Duath from existence (and probably himself as well, but Jareth thought that price well worth it), Duath began chanting and the power of the ritual flooded into the hall like polluted water. Jareth, Sarah, Draeda, and even the malformed soldiers were caught in its stifling grip, unable to move or speak. The only person unaffected by the grim stasis was Duath himself at the center of the spell. He moved his arms and hands in emphasis of the words as he intoned the incantation and Sarah was seized with a deep, instinctive fear. Something terrible was about to happen, something worse than she had ever imagined and which the earth itself abhorred. She felt the power within her rising like a struggling animal, but the pressure of Duath's dark words bottled it up. She grew acutely aware of her own heartbeat and of the struggle to draw in one breath after another.  
  
Duath reached the end of his spell. He clapped his hands together and drew a gleaming knife from his belt. Sarah's stomach lurched and she squeezed her eyes shut, knowing what would come next.  
  
"I shed the blood of my friend," Duath chanted, "I shed the blood of my servant, I shed the blood of my father." Sarah bit her lip to keep from screaming and tasted the tang of her own blood against her teeth. There was a cry, a soft slapping sound, and suddenly the hall was filled with a tremendous roaring and the pressure lifted as wind whipped through her hair.  
  
Sarah cracked her eyes open and saw the poor crumpled figure of Draeda, a red river running from beneath him. He didn't appear to be dead - in fact, it looked as if Duath had stabbed him in the side, and now Draeda was curled around the wound like a child protecting itself from further harm, but Sarah knew he couldn't lose that much blood and last for long. Duath himself was standing with arms raised, hands stained red, and in front of him was a vortex of pure nightmare.  
  
It was like the rift that had brought Sarah to Tir-na-nOg, but darker and fiercer. It pulsed with purpose, and somehow seemed to expand while at the same time delving down into itself. It grew and grew until it practically touched the ceiling of the hall, and the demon soldiers surrounding Duath began to chant, "Fomhoire, Fomhoire."  
  
"What is it?" Sarah whimpered.  
  
"Very ancient," Jareth said hoarsely. "They are the source of our blackest myths. They came from the deep places of the oceans, seeking to conquer the world when it was young. They were defeated and sealed away in a dark prison long ago."  
  
The chanting of Duath's creatures changed. "Balor, Balor," they repeated, undulating their bodies in time with the syllables.  
  
Through the swirling vortex, a clawed hand emerged. It was at least as long as Duath was tall. The soldiers at the base of the storm went wild, howling and gyrating and cavorting about, screaming incoherently. The thing behind the hand seemed to be having some trouble getting out of the vortex, as if it was having to climb up a very steep hill. "Please let it fall back in," Sarah begged silently. "Let it fall away and leave forever."  
  
But Duath had worked his spell too well. Slowly but surely, inch by loathsome inch, the King of the Fomhoire pushed himself into Tir-na-nOg. He was a bulky, muscled monstrosity, a scaled and scarred giant standing at least twenty feet high. He bowed beneath the roof of the hall and his long green hair dripped with seawater. The demon soldiers piled around his feet like flies, and his cold serpentine eyes spared them enough attention to hurl them from him with a flick of his huge claw. Turning his ponderous muzzle to Duath, he hissed in an ancient and cracked voice, "Art thou he who hath opened this dark Gate?"  
  
"Yes, O Balor, King of the Sea!" Duath cried, bowing. "An army of your servants stands ready to invade both the Underground and the Upper Country. We await only the breaking of the seal on the Black Gate."  
  
The great grizzled mouth cracked open in a horrible smile. "Then all is in readiness. And thy price, little man? What wouldst thou claim as thy prize for betraying thy people?"  
  
"Immortality, my King," Duath answered immediately. "To rule beneath you and serve you always."  
  
"Ah." A huge green eye blinked lazily at the human standing so earnestly and incongruously in front of the ancient King of the Seapeople. "I would give thee all that thy heart desires and more," Balor said, voice dripping with false regret, "but I have many sons and daughters who wait to follow me and possess this lush earth, as we have dreamed for uncounted ages. Immortality I shall grant thee - we shall eternally raise our voices to thy memory on the anniversary of this day, as the author of our release." The King stepped forward with clear intent.  
  
"My King!" Duath cried in alarm, backing away and gesturing down to where Draeda lay curled. "Fresh meat for you, still living!"  
  
"Thou seekest to tempt me with a gift that is already mine," the King of the Fomhoire chuckled. "Such an insult shall not be forgiven!" With one swift lunge, Balor impaled Duath on his claw, threw back his huge head, and ripped him asunder, swallowing him in two great gulps.  
  
Sarah's mind reeled in shock. Things were spiraling way out of their control. Balor had to be stopped, but she had no idea how they were going to do that. At least Duath had been human! She turned to Jareth, eyes beseeching. The look on his face - equal parts determination and hopelessness - made her blood run cold.  
  
"Stay here," he commanded her, adding a surge of power behind the words. She suddenly felt like her legs were locked in iron.  
  
"What are you doing?" she hissed. "Let me go!"  
  
He didn't respond. Instead, he drew his silver sword and stepped out into the hall. "Balor!" Jareth roared. The ponderous head turned toward him in surprise.  
  
"Another man," the Sea King remarked. "And what shall I give thee? A throne beside Duath, where thou shalt rule through all the ages?" The terrible sneer in Balor's voice made Sarah quake.  
  
"Only one thing can you give me," Jareth said. "Your death!" As quick as lightening, Jareth whipped back his arm and threw his sword at the King's enormous chest. The weapon flew straight and true, striking deep into Balor's flesh. The Sea King roared in pain and reared back, clawing at his wound. With a wild yell, Jareth fell upon the King and struck him with his bare fist, the raw power of sorcery flowing down his arm and out through his hand, and the smell of burning hide filled the air. Jareth struck again and again, each time with the force of a thunderbolt, and the Sea King seemed to shrink into himself. Sarah clapped her hands in jubilation. Jareth was winning!  
  
All at once, however, Balor flung his arms wide and seemed to grow even larger than he had first appeared. Sarah suddenly noticed in utter dismay that he bore no mark, not even at the place where she had seen him struck, and he held Jareth's sword in his hand, flaming red. Growling in anger, Balor swung for the Goblin King - and Sarah saw, as if in slow motion, the arc of the blow come under Jareth's guard. She saw the blade bite deep into his side, its inexorable and deadly path taking it just underneath his heart. Even now, she knew, his left lung would be filling with blood. Her heartbeat thundered in her ears, a slow thudding. Balor released the hilt and Jareth fell to his knees. Her Goblin King never looked in her direction - even at the end, he sought to protect her - but kept his gaze trained on Balor's face as he toppled sideways to the slick marble.  
  
Sarah wasn't even conscious of moving. She was only aware of reaching him, flinging herself to her knees beside him and pressing her face against his bloody cheek. His body had gone so still. She looked into his strange eyes and stroked his wild hair, pressing her finger gently against his mouth when he tried to move his lips. "Don't speak," she whispered. "There is nothing that needs to be said." Drawing his head gently into her lap, Sarah closed her eyes and a single tear tracked from under the lid down to her chin.  
  
Balor. Balor had done this. If he remained free, he would continue on to destroy everything she had ever loved and everything that was good about life. A rage like nothing she had ever experienced exploded inside her and she raised her head to look at the Sea King standing over her, his great paw raised to draw her away from her beloved. Her power rose eagerly to her call, a liquid fire that poured through her veins, but she knew that it was not enough. The Fomhoire were of an older time and their King would not mind her small magic. Instead of reaching outward to her enemy, Sarah dove inward.  
  
She felt the force of life running through her, the sweet energy that fed her mind and body, and instinct drove her deeper. She plunged into the secret depths of herself, searching for the wild, dark place that she somehow knew was there - the kernel at the heart of every living creature that bound her to the earth in the most fundamental way. And there, in the silence of her innermost being, she felt a stirring like the awakening of some massive beast.  
  
Help me, she begged. The earth beneath her moved in response. The slow, steady might of Tir-na-nOg rose up around her and she felt the passionate, wild energy of the Underground mingle with the cool, calm force of the Upper Country, flowing to her aid. All around her, she sensed the pulse of life as the worlds swelled to her call and poured their power into her. Even Jareth's dim spark, flickering fainter every moment, rose to help her fight her enemy. She was the vessel of the desire experienced by all living things for survival and freedom, and she knew she must succeed. Opening her eyes, she directed the force within her at the giant Sea King and growled, "Back."  
  
Balor snarled. He recognized this threat - this was how he had first been sealed in his dark prison ages ago by the white-robed men who called themselves Druids. He sprang for the weak and puny girl below him, intending to crush the life from her before she could bring the entire world to bear against him, but Sarah was too quick for him and he was hurled backward by the power radiating from her tiny hand.  
  
"This earth shall not be ruled by you," Sarah said with unshakeable conviction. She raised her arms and pushed him back towards the darkest Gate, and every living thing on every world helped her. The crashing rivers and ageless rocks pressed Balor back into his prison, the growing things of the earth wove a new barrier where Duath had ripped it open, and the fierceness of the sun sealed it closed.  
  
The Sea King was gone. He had lost, and Sarah had won. Slowly the power she had borrowed to protect her world drained from her, leaving her feeling like she was a million years old and weak as a mouse. The hall was utterly still. The demon soldiers had been flung back into the abyss with their King and she was left alone with the dead and the dying. Sarah bent her head over Jareth's face and wept. He still breathed, but the rise and fall of his chest grew shallower every moment. She couldn't bear to see his flesh torn and mangled, so she brought the magic within her to bear (how insignificant it seemed now!) and sealed the great rent in his side. He had lost far too much blood, however, and was beyond the healing powers of either magic or science.  
  
Behind her, Draeda coughed. In some corner of her mind, Sarah registered that he was also still alive, but she could not be distracted from her grief. It wasn't until Draeda managed to twist himself around and kick her foot that she turned her head dully to look at him, eyes swimming with tears.  
  
"Dead?" Draeda asked.  
  
"Not yet," Sarah whispered. "Very soon."  
  
Draeda have a huge, wracking cough and his lips were slick with cherry-red fluid. "I, too. Great victory can only come at a great cost. His life and mine are but a small part of the sacrifices made to stop my son. The seal on the Black Gate was destroyed when Balor came into Tir-na-nOg. The worlds will be able to heal now; do not despair."  
  
"How - " Sarah's voice caught in the back of her throat, so she coughed and tried again. "How can I not despair? The man I love more than I ever thought possible is dying in my arms. Isn't there something I can do?"  
  
"Death comes to us all in the end, even in Tir-na-nOg," Draeda rasped. "His life energy is spent. My heart grieves for you, but he died with honor."  
  
"And what a bitter consolation that is," Sarah muttered. "It's not fair! If only I could give him some of my life energy, I felt it flowing so strongly through me just now. . . "  
  
Sarah paused. She thought about what she had just said. There was no way she could know if it was even possible or if it would kill both of them or if it would just blow up in her face, but she didn't hesitate for a single instant. Grabbing Jareth's cold hands in hers, Sarah reached inside herself for the flowing energy she had felt there earlier. It was like a golden river of warmth, and she seized it and forced it down her arms and through her fingers, out her skin and into him. Pain blindsided her and she whimpered in shock, but forced herself to continue. Ye gods, she thought, this must be what it's like to get skinned alive. The agony was incredible, beyond anything she had ever imagined, but she hung onto his hands and grimly poured her life into him for what felt like hours.  
  
After a very long time, Sarah felt that pushing the flow towards Jareth was becoming more and more difficult. The energy began to wash backwards, spilling back into herself, and Sarah knew she had given all she could. Her head felt muzzy and her vision seemed to be telescoping into blackness. Slumping over his body, she put a shaking hand on his chest. It moved - once, then twice, then steadily and evenly. Sarah was too spent to feel more than the embers of satisfaction, and she wanted nothing more than to get out of that hall. She turned to Draeda for help and met the glassy, fixed stare of a dead man. "Poor fellow," she whispered.  
  
Staggering to her feet, she hooked her hands under Jareth's armpits and strained to pull him gracelessly down the hall to the wide band of black stone. After the darkest Gate, the Black Gate was child's play and hummed to life at her touch, collecting swirling darkness to lie in a thick sheet across the hall. Setting her teeth and heaving with all that was left of her failing strength, she dragged Jareth through the doorway into the Underground. 


	8. Chapter 8

Birds were singing somewhere. Sprawling on her back, Sarah reveled in the feeling of sun on her closed eyelids. A cool wind smelling of leaves and rain blew gently against her face and the back of her shirt felt soaking wet. She opened her eyes to the sight of a sky as brilliantly blue as the one in her world, peppered with spent clouds, and the force of her relief was so strong that she choked. Tearing her eyes away from the glorious color, she turned her head to locate Jareth, one hand already unconsciously moving across the ground in search of him. He lay just a few feet from her, curled around himself as if in memory of the terrible wound he had received. In a moment of panic, Sarah forgot to breath herself until she saw his chest move in a long, easy inspiration.  
  
At that moment it all became too much. She didn't even have the strength to curl up as Jareth had done; she lay helpless on her back as the tears came furiously. At last they were safe and the shock, horror and sorrow of Tir-na-nOg could be purged. She sobbed for a long time and at the end of it she wished that Jareth would wake up and hold her and tell her that everything was all right now. The exhaustion of having been so close to death still lay heavy on him though, and Sarah had to content herself with the consolation that at least he was alive. After her storm of weeping was spent, she lay for a long time just enjoying the feeling of a breeze on her cheeks, her mind empty and sore.  
  
After a while she started to think about what would happen now. Jareth was back in his own country, but she was even farther from her world than she had been before. She desperately wanted to see Pierce and Sandy and her dad again, to have normalcy reassert its stabilizing presence in her life. She had always wanted to have adventures, but Tir-na-nOg had happened too quickly and too violently. It had stretched every nerve beyond the breaking point but somehow she had survived, and now part of her was terrified at the thought that, for good or ill, things had changed forever. The magic was inside her now.  
  
Even if she got back to her own country, went back to college, and pretended that nothing had happened, it would just be a big lie. In fact, most of her world was living a huge falsehood. There had to be other people like her who might have been mages if they had been born into a world that believed in magic, and she knew from personal experience that those people would never feel at ease with themselves while such an important part of their lives was denied its very existence. And then there was Jareth himself.  
  
Sarah rolled herself onto her side and gasped as the bruises that ran up and down her body viciously announced themselves. Her muscles ached with a fiery soreness and every part of her body suddenly seemed anxious to let her know exactly how much it disapproved of movement. "Okay, bad idea," she said, gritting her teeth. "Come on girl, you're a mage. Heal thyself, can't you?" In response, the weak echo of her magic rose inside her, surveyed the damage, and promptly collapsed. Apparently she had overspent herself and was now paying the price. Swearing floridly, Sarah flopped onto her belly and was in the process of trying to convince her upper limbs to push her into a sitting position when she was distracted by a familiar chuckle. Rolling her eyes heavenward, she demanded, "Can't I ever get a break here? Of course he's got to wake up when I'm face-first in the dirt."  
  
"Of course," Jareth's voice purred in her ear. He didn't seem to be having nearly the amount of trouble that she was. His movements were as elegant as ever, if perhaps a trifle slow, as he rose to a sitting position and deftly gathered her into his lap. Sarah sighed in defeat and laid her head on his shoulder. His voice rumbled against her ear as he continued, "Although I feel I ought to confess that the sight of your dirt-smudged nose is lovelier to me even than that of the blue sky, of which I thought I had seen my last."  
  
"Oh, Jareth," Sarah said, tilting her head upward to look into his face. Was it her imagination, or did his weird eyes still darken and close off as they looked at her? With an effort she raised a finger and laid it along his chin, noticing the quiver in his cheek. In that moment it became supremely clear to her that her choice was actually a very simple one. She would be miserable if she ever left this man - spiritually bereft, emotionally destitute. Even if she never saw her father again, she would at least be happy if she could have this one great love. It was like the sun breaking through the clouds in her mind, and she smiled up at him with all the love she felt. The shadow in his eyes drew back a little and Sarah felt her heart soar.  
  
"Jareth," she said, "you might as well look your fill at the smudge on my nose, because lots of things about me are smudgy - I'll never be a good princess and I don't have a skinny waist and when people expect me to be elegant I become a total klutz and it might be just a matter of time until you wish you'd found someone more suited to your station. But the truth is that I will only be fully alive if I can be with you. I don't care if it's for an hour or a month or fifty years, although in all honesty I'd prefer the latter, but I'll take what I can get. Because - because - because I love you!" The last part rushed from her lips in a gust of mixed determination and terror, but the look on his face was well worth the anxiety. He looked like a man who has been handed the key to all earthly happiness but who doesn't quite understand what has just happened to him.  
  
That adorable look of bewildered joy (which Sarah would never forget) lasted for the space of half a dozen heartbeats, and then Jareth gave a cry filled with so many different emotions that Sarah couldn't even begin to sort it out, especially once he started kissing her. He kissed her hair, her eyes, her cheeks, and hesitated a mere moment before he kissed her mouth in sweet, sweet acknowledgement of everything between them that was wonderful. Sarah felt happy beyond words as she saw that the shadow behind his eyes had fled. She would do everything in her power to make sure it never returned.  
  
Although she could eagerly accept his caresses, it annoyed Sarah to find that she was still too weak to do much else. Jareth noticed it after the first wave of bliss had ebbed enough to allow that sort of rational thought, and with infinite tenderness asked, "What's wrong, dearest?"  
  
"I don't know," Sarah confessed. "After we went through the Gate, I just kind of collapsed. I feel bruised all over and I'm so weak I can't even move."  
  
Jareth's brow creased and the focus of his eyes seemed to shift slightly, and Sarah realized that he was examining her with magic. He didn't seem to like what he saw because his eyes first widened in shock, then narrowed with temper. "Who the hell did this?" he snarled.  
  
"Did what?" Sarah asked, alarmed.  
  
His arms tightened possessively around her as he growled, "The strength of life in your body is depleted almost to the point of death. Only the blackest magician is capable of ripping someone's very essence away. We are not safe here. Our enemy must have followed us!"  
  
"What enemy?" Sarah demanded. "There wasn't anybody left, remember? Poor Draeda Duath is dead, and his son got filleted by the creature from the black lagoon, and then said creature got sent back to said lagoon. I think you might have missed that part." Her voice trembled as she fought to block out the memory of that last, terrible sword stroke.  
  
Jareth's frown deepened. "Why do I not remember this? There was a battle - Malocoli slew his lieutenant and then was slain himself - and I fought the Fomhoire. . . "  
  
"Um, well, you were injured in the fight," Sarah explained, trying in vain to sound casual about it. "Balor got his just desserts, never fear. I didn't know what to do, you were hurt so badly." Sarah couldn't help herself; she started to sob. Between tearful breaths, she blurted out, "I poured my own life into you. I couldn't think of any other way to save you! I was so scared I might lose you."  
  
She felt Jareth's arms go tense around her. "What did you say?" he whispered in a voice that could have frozen running water. Putting both hands on her arms, he lifted her in front of him so that they were face to face and brought his nose within inches of her own. "You put yourself in that kind of danger? Idiot creature! Stupid selflessness! What would I have done if you had died, eh? Did you think of that, you mad, irresponsible woman? I would have gone insane with grief! You bloody fool, you are never, never, never to put yourself at risk again, do you hear me?" The volume of his voice rose steadily until he was shouting, and with each repetition of 'never' he gave her a quick, firm shake. The look on his face was torn between pride, gratitude, fear, and anguish.  
  
Sarah had to smother a grin at the fierce complexity of the man she loved, who was so convinced that he was not worth her sacrifice that he rejected it completely. She felt the blood pound in her ears as her ire rose and gave herself gladly to the fight, crying, "Oh, fine words coming from you! That's the pot calling the kettle black! You practically jumped in front of that monstrosity, all eager to sacrifice yourself heroically on my behalf. What, pray tell, would I have done if you had died? I'd have spent the rest of my life tormented and alone, haunted by that one terrible moment. You're not the only one who can love selflessly, you know. If you don't like it you better just get used to it, because I'd sacrifice my life to save yours any day of the week! And you promised you'd never yell at me again!"  
  
"By the good earth," Jareth thundered, "I'll keep you safe if I have to barricade you in the highest tower!"  
  
"You will NOT!" Sarah shouted happily. "I said I want to live my life at your side and that's exactly what I'll do - live! Not waste away in enforced security. You can't ensure my safety any more than I can ensure yours."  
  
"I will not tolerate you risking yourself on my behalf!" Jareth roared back.  
  
"Tough luck, buster - you're stuck with me. Plus, I saved your life! We really have to work on this gratitude problem of yours," Sarah retorted, but she could no longer hold back her smile. As she watched conflicting emotions chase themselves across his face, her grin broadened until she knew she must be smiling at him like an idiot. She was so happy that he was here, alive and arguing with her, that she couldn't help it.  
  
Jareth was struck speechless by the brilliance and joy of her smile, and after a moment began ruefully to chuckle at himself. Gathering her to him, he buried his face in her hair and gave himself over to half-sobbing, half- laughing that this beautiful, courageous woman would give her life for his, as she put it, any day of the week. Clutching her like a drowning man, he gave vent to the agony he felt at knowing that he had already brought her to the brink of destruction, and that she would follow him there again. Sarah held him just as tightly, reassuring him of her presence without a word.  
  
Jareth was the one who finally broke the mood by saying, "Things will be different from now on, you know."  
  
"Yeah," Sarah said softly, "I was thinking about that earlier."  
  
He continued, "The Black Gate is open. If you listen, you will hear it humming with energy just behind us, which means that its counterpart has also opened. Any record which tells of where in your world the Sun Gate is located was lost long ago, but it is only a matter of time until someone from the Upper Country stumbles across it. In ages past, my family were the guardians of the entrance to Tir-na-nOg. It is high time that duty was returned to us."  
  
Sarah turned her head weakly to look up at him. "What are you saying?" she asked breathlessly.  
  
Jareth dropped his lips to her hair briefly before saying, "I do not think it has been good for either of our worlds to exist in isolation. The Upper Country has abandoned magic completely, whereas the Underground is equally ignorant of the benefits of science. Both arts, it seems to me, have a place in the scheme of things."  
  
"People will be frightened," Sarah said slowly. "At least in the Underground, you knew about Tir-na-nOg and the Upper Country. All we have are legends and stories. It's going to take a long, long time before people get comfortable with the idea of magic. And there might be wars - we make terrible weapons with science and lots of people are just greedy. They'll look at the Underground as something to exploit."  
  
"Then we'll act very slowly and very carefully to make sure that nothing of that sort happens," Jareth said in a firm voice. "My people also will see an opportunity to take without giving from your world, unprotected from magic as it is. We will establish a guardian of the Sun Gate, just as we will guard the Black Gate. Our worlds are separated from each other by many hundreds of years. It may take generations to heal the breach - but if you and I do not live to see it done, then we will raise our children to be equal to the task."  
  
Surprise gave Sarah the strength to raise her head. "Our children?" she inquired softly.  
  
Jareth gave a low, warm laugh without any of his usual rancor or sarcasm. "My dearest, will you consent to wed yourself to me and be my Queen? I would kneel, but I can scarcely get closer to the ground than I already am, and I fear you would fall over if left to stand unattended."  
  
Sarah intended to punch him, but it turned out as rather a feeble pat. "You're a terrible man," she told him, "and I love you with my whole heart. Of course I'll marry you."  
  
Jareth gave a small, soft sigh that caught the edge of Sarah's hearing and sounded like a barely-audible "Thank you." He held her for a little longer, then said, "It will be a long road to reunification, you know."  
  
"I know," she said.  
  
"It will be difficult and unpleasant, and we'll disagree about the best way to do things," he continued.  
  
"And we'll have spectacular fights but we'll be careful not to hurt each other's feelings, and making up afterwards will be even better," Sarah said dreamily.  
  
Jareth snorted. "You must be the only woman alive who is looking forward to marital discord."  
  
"Oh, I wouldn't call it discord," Sarah disagreed. "You see, I've realized that you only call me names because you love me, and far be it from me to prohibit any expression of your undying affection."  
  
"Undying, yes," Jareth said, "but 'affection' does not come even a little close to the breadth and vitality of my feelings for you." Sarah looked into his eyes and thought that she was the luckiest person in two worlds.  
  
In front of them, the sun had been steadily declining and now dipped into the haze of rain clouds at the horizon, spilling brilliant orange light across the sky. The color fell like liquid gold across the land, burnishing each plant and rock to a glowing copper. Caught in the light, Jareth saw the flecks of gold hidden deep in Sarah's brown eyes. Her earnest gaze met his as she asked, "And where will we live?"  
  
"There, in my castle, beyond the Goblin City," Jareth answered, raising a long arm to point in the direction of the setting sun.  
  
Sarah shielded her eyes and squinted to make out a tall tower standing at the center of a sprawl of stone buildings. And spreading out around it in all directions . . . "Not again!" she cried. "I've had enough of Labyrinths to last me a lifetime!"  
  
Behind her, she heard Jareth's soft chuckle. "This Labyrinth was built by my forefathers, and it recognizes its King - and its Queen." As she watched, the old yellow stone of the maze shifted and rearranged itself to form a broad avenue as wide as a house and as straight as an arrow leading directly to the castle.  
  
"I'm still pretty weak," Sarah confessed. "You'll have to carry me."  
  
"My lady," Jareth replied, "I would carry you to the ends of the earth and back again, if you asked it of me." He stood and lifted her in his arms, settling her against his chest, and set off walking toward the Labyrinth. As he descended the long, dusty hill that lay in front of the maze, Sarah saw a knot of brightly colored objects that might be people standing at the heart of the newly-formed avenue. The faraway group seemed to have paused and looked their way because something sent them scurrying toward them like mice to a cheese, and as Jareth set his foot on the first paving stone of the Labyrinth a trumpet peal rang out above the city, welcoming its lord and his lady home. 


	9. Epilogue

Pierce sat with his head in his hands, ignoring the cooling coffee at his elbow as he dully scanned yet another police report. This one described an unidentified young woman who had stolen a car in Kanab, Utah and later ditched it just east of Arches National Park. It clearly wasn't Sarah, since that girl would never steal a thing in her life and the eyewitness said he thought she had blond hair. It had been more than three weeks now and Pierce was truly grasping at straws. The police were convinced that Pierce and his companions had dragged her off into the desert and done something despicable to her, and it was only his money and the small influence he still had in the world of politics that had kept the four of them out of jail. Her father had threatened to beat the truth out of him with his bare fists when he first called, but something about Pierce's desperate search for his daughter must have been convincing because they had since become allies in the ritual of reading missing persons sightings. Pierce had pretty much stopped sleeping and Terry spent every waking hour fussing over him like an enormous mother hen.  
  
Pierce guessed what had happened, and he blamed himself utterly. Up until that moment in Arizona it had all been an elaborate game, a quest for a holy grail that was not likely to succeed. His casual disregard for the gravity of the situation had put Sarah in danger, and he would never forgive himself for that. The missing persons reports were just a way to stay sane, for Pierce was certain that his dear Sarah was no longer in this world and most likely no longer among the living.  
  
The harsh jangle of the phone interrupted his thoughts. He checked the number and didn't recognize it. Cursed reporters, he thought. Couldn't they leave a miserable man alone? The papers had had a field day with the incident, digging up dirt on his 'cult' that had so irresponsibly (or maliciously) allowed something to happen to one of its members. After five rings the person on the other end gave up, but not for long because they were back again half a minute later. This time it rang seven times. Absurdly, however, another thirty seconds later the phone rang again, this time for five rings.  
  
Pierce was intrigued. This was not exactly a reporter's style; they tended to just stay on the line until you caved in and answered. He would have unplugged his phone except he couldn't bear the thought of missing a call that had to do with Sarah. After the next thirty second interval, he picked up. "Hello?" he said, trying to inject a fearsome snarl into his tired voice.  
  
The line was full of static but there was no mistaking the voice on the other end. "Pierce? Is that you? Ye gods, it's good to hear your voice!"  
  
The hand that clenched the phone and pressed it to his ear seemed to be the only part of him that was alive. His jaw worked soundlessly for a moment before he finally gasped out, "Sarah? Is this really you?" Just the sound of her merry little voice brought tears to his eyes. He thought maybe he was dying and this was his introduction to heaven.  
  
The line crackled and spit and she said, "Yeah, it really is me. I'm so sorry, Pierce. This past while must have been awful for you. I wish I'd been able to get back sooner, but I ran into a bit of an adventure and I couldn't travel for a couple of days until I got my strength back."  
  
He licked dry lips and croaked, "Are you all right, hon? Where are you?"  
  
"You'll never guess!" her voice rose happily above the static. She sounded good at least, Pierce thought. "I'm in Ireland. Of course it would be Ireland! A town by the name of Grin-bally-something, I'm not really sure. As soon as we got here I went in search of a phone. I'm calling from the back of the local pub."  
  
"Oh darlin', I am so happy to hear your voice. Where have you been?" Tears coursed unchecked down his cheeks and he turned to yell in the direction of the study door, "Terry! Terry, she's back! She's on the phone!" There was a crash and a muffled oath and then Terry came barreling into the room and snatched up the extension that Pierce was waving at him. It made the line even worse, of course, but no one cared. For a couple of minutes there was nothing but laughter and happy tears and reassurances that everyone was all right. When Pierce started to ask her about her adventure, however, she got a little vague.  
  
"I really couldn't do it justice over the phone," she told him. "There are some, um, visuals that accompany it and it really is a long story." Was it his imagination or was she giggling at someone on the other end? "How soon can you get here, do you think?"  
  
"Give me ten minutes to pack and be on a flight," Pierce said. "Just give me the name of that town. I'll fly your dad in, too."  
  
"Pierce, you are the absolute best!" she said. "Thank you, thank you, thank you! By the way, do you fancy living in Ireland? There's sort of an important job here, and I think you're the perfect person to do it."  
  
"Ireland?" Terry raised an eyebrow in Pierce's direction and shrugged. "Well, I guess we could talk about it. What exactly does this job entail?"  
  
Her voice was rich with happiness and excitement, audible even through the bad connection. "Oh Pierce, it's the greatest thing in the whole world. Just wait until you get here - oh, and I have the name of the town for you. It's Grianbaile, appropriately enough. The city of the sun."  
  
THE END  
  
* * *  
  
AN: Please forgive the liberties I've taken with the Irish language - not being a native speaker, I had to approximate. Thank you for taking the time to read my story; if you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it, then I am well satisfied. 


End file.
